From the Secretariat
Maintaining State Controlled Roadways
DR ELIZABETH GIBSON, General Manager of CMPA provides a summary on The Victorian Auditor General’s Report on “Maintaining State Controlled Roadways” released on 22 June 2017.
There are few surprises as shown below:
“Reduced funding in real terms, and deficiencies in developing the maintenance program, have led to maintenance practices that are not adequate to sustain the functional condition of
VicRoads’ road network at an acceptable standard. The proportion of the network requiring rehabilitation has increased. As a result, less money has been available for works that slow the rate of road pavement deterioration.”
The audit focused on whether Victoria’s state controlled roadways are being effectively and efficiently maintained through gaining a statewide perspective by examination of VicRoads’ head office
processes and compared how they were implemented at two of VicRoads’ regional offices.
Some key findings of the report were that:
- Whilst VicRoads outsources most of its approved maintenance programs, there are no clear outcomes for this work and individual regions have developed inconsistent ways of measuring contractor performance. Hence, a complete picture of the contractor’s performance in terms of cost efficiency or quality of work is not achieved.
- Targeted early intervention, which can prevent roads from needing more costly intervention has been limited and, hence, the road pavement condition data indicates that the road network has deteriorated leading to an increased maintenance backlog and lower levels of service for road users.
- From 2010/11 to 2015/16 there has been a 41% decrease in maintenance funding and so VicRoads adopts a worst first approach and does not consider preservation of roads that are not yet in a critical condition (see figure 1).
- Current reporting by VicRoads does not show the actual deterioration occurring in the network and even suggests that there has been little variation over the past five years (2010/11 – 2015/16).
The report is available http://www.audit.vic.gov.au
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