Development of A Systematic Strategy for Maintenance of Rural Road Network

Abstract

The lack of year round access to many rural communities is a serious constraint to social and economic development of rural road. Poor access limits the effectiveness of agricultural, commercial, educational and health initiatives though unreliable travel and high unit transport costs for crops, goods, services and people.. However, experiences have shown that these roads, although relatively cheap to construct, are often an unsustainable maintenance burden for many rural communities and road authorities like PMGSY, and are rarely maintained in a serviceable condition. Rural road are deteriorating fast due to lack of timely maintenance, leading to higher vehicle operating costs, increasing number of accidents etc. Because, once road start to deteriorate; they deteriorate rapidly beyond the point where maintenance is effective.  Thus, there is an urgent need to develop a strategy for maintenance of road network. In this study, an innovative strategy for maintenance of rural road is proposed. A two stage maintenance strategy is proposed. The methodology proposed in this study is illustrated with the help of example of some hypothetical rural roads network consisting of 10 sections. Analysis results indicated that the proposed strategy is considered to be more rational, innovative & logical. Some strategies for maintenance of rural roads are also presented in this study. Therefore, it is expected that this study will be useful for maintenance of huge road network in India and thus will be useful for preserving huge asset of road infrastructure