Roads go downhill

Creation date: 10 February 2010

Inadequate capacity and the poor condition of the road network in the country are adding an additional or avoidable R200 billion cost factor to the collective transport bill of South African road users.

This was the assessment of the South African Road Federation (SARF) in a statement released mid February this year.

The SARF’s expression of concerns comes a year after a report card on the current state of South Africa’s public built-environment infrastructure by the South African Institution of Civil Engineering (Saice) warned that, as far as the country’s road network is concerned “overall, the maintenance backlog is increasing.”

SARF in its statement especially expresses its “concern at the poor condition of the country’s provincial and municipal road network.”

Saice, however a year ago also warned that there is “serious concern … that 72% of the national road network is nearing the end of its design life, placing the health of the entire national network at risk. The parliamentary portfolio committee on transport was recently told by the South African National Road Agency (Sanral) that 12 000km of the 16 000km paved national roads are older than 20 years.

Sanral’s CO, Nazir Alli told the committee that the position at provincial and municipal level is even worse, especially due to skills shortages.

Saice also expressed concern about the availability of reliable information, based on surveys of the network on which sound management decisions can be based.

“The national Department of Transport noted all provincial roads authorities used to carry out annual ‘visual condition index’ studies,” the Saice report card stated. But since 1992 “more than half” of them curbed or stopped doing the surveys.

“Some provinces have very little quality information on which to base managerial performance evaluation and need-identification processes,” they stated.

“Very little consolidated information is available on the condition of roads in municipalities,” they found.

While funding remains a continuous challenge the lack of skills remain the biggest single problems at all levels of jurisdiction. It is however most acute at provincial and especially municipal level.
The Saice survey indicated that more than a third of all 231 local municipalities do not have a single civil engineer, technologist or technician. There are more than 1 000 vacancies in local government for engineering practitioners.

South Africa has only half as many engineers as doctors, while Australia, the US, Western European countries, China and India have a similar number of engineers to doctors.

Saice’s research indicates that, in general, developing countries have more doctors than engineers, whereas the opposite is true in developed countries.

Municipalities currently have an average of less than 3 qualified civil engineers per 100 000 residents. These engineers have to deal not only with roads, but water supply, sewage, cleansing, structures and traffic needs.

This should be compared with a required staff complement of at least 40 civil engineers for municipalities with 200 000 households.

The position of provincial road authorities is not much better – one provincial road authority is reported to have only 5 professionally qualified road engineers, compared with at least 50 some 40 years ago, when the demand on these engineers was considerably less than today.

Some commentators have described the crisis with South African roads as being on a par with the one with electricity supply.

The SARF says in their statement “the lack of adequate maintenance and the non implementation of planning is leading to a situation not dissimilar to the current energy crisis involving Eskom, where our road infrastructure is rapidly failing to meet the demand.

Road traffic safety is also being compromised by potholes, rutted and slippery surfaces and a lack of general road and roadside maintenance, which often results in inadequate drainage. The SARF expresses its disappointment that lack of maintenance has lead to the rapidly deteriorating condition of the country’s provincial and municipal road networks.

“Whilst there might be a few exceptions in certain provinces, in general, the rural and municipal road network is failing, both in condition and its ability to cope with increased demand. In short, the overall condition of our network, excluding national roads, is a long way below professionally recognised acceptable standards.

“This fact is recognised by the Minister of Transport, Mr Jeff Radebe, who in addressing the Southern African Transport Conference in Pretoria in 2007 said that our road networks were ‘bursting at the seams.’

Road engineers worldwide carry out condition surveys on their country’s road networks, rating roads on a 5-point scale from very good to very poor. It is generally accepted that not more than 10% of the network should fall into the “poor” and “very poor” categories.

These surveys are generally carried out annually in most countries. In South Africa the last comprehensive survey of our overall provincial network was carried out 8 years ago. At that time the figure for roads falling into the poor and very poor category ranged from 8% in the Western Cape, the only province to meet generally recognised acceptable standards, to 62% for the worst province.

“If it is accepted that any road section with a rating of fair, poor or very poor is unsatisfactory, 92% of a particular province’s roads were unsatisfactory. This was eight years ago – and conditions have most definitely not improved since then,” the organisation says.

SARF points out that one of the manifestations of the poor condition of our roads is the growing incidence of potholes which cause damage to vehicles and are a threat to road safety.
Worldwide a rule of thumb for measuring the competence of road authorities is the time taken to repair potholes. Forty eight hours is an acceptable norm for rural roads, and 12 hours for freeways and motorways.

In South Africa, as users will attest, potholes often are not attended to for up to 6 months or longer. An excuse often given is the rainy season, when the incidence of potholes accelerates. However all over the world rainy seasons occur and are handled appropriately by competent road authorities, the statement claims.

While transport minister Jeff Radebe’s estimate at a conference last year had been that South Africa was facing a road maintenance backlog of more than R50-billion, the country might be facing a vicious circle on this front.

If roads are not repaired timeously costs can rise seven-fold. According to some experts, to reinstate the road network to its condition of 15 years ago it will require additional funding of approximately R10-billion annually over and above existing expenditure.

The crisis has also been a long time in coming. As far back as 2003, the Automobile Association of South Africa estimated that it would cost an estimated R64-billion to get SA’s roads back into shape.
Automobile Association spokesperson Gary Ronald recently said that estimates in the order of R200-billion was not unrealistic.

"The organisation (AA) gets complaints daily about dangerous roads. It is in suburbia that we are getting so many complaints especially about the major increase in potholes.”

In its response to SARF’s statement, SANRAL said it recognises the challenges raised in the statement.

In a statement of its own SANRAL said that “roads deteriorate due to several factors including climate, geographical factors and heavy use.

Resurfacing should ideally be carried out every 8-12 years, and total rehabilitation every 20-25 years, depending on the volume and intensity of traffic, and geographical features.

"Delays in resurfacing and rehabilitation cause exponentially increased spending, way in excess of inflation.

"To ensure that we meet the challenges posed to the road system, we have introduced a Pavement Management System. In this way SANRAL is able to prepare multi-year implementation plans delivering the best possible use of its scarce resources to ensure asset preservation.

"Monitoring of road condition is done through surveys, performed by automated mobile data acquisition vehicles, equipped with advanced laser, video and computer based technologies. This quantifies the current condition of the network, as well as the historic performance, and will predict future conditions over a 20 year period.

"It will also evaluate costs and benefits of maintenance and repair strategies. The consequence of this is that the decline in the condition its network of roads has been arrested, and is steadily being improved.

"To supplement funding available from the tax revenues, approximately 15% of national roads are tolled, which enables SANRAL to develop and maintain a sophisticated network, above and beyond that which can be funded by the state alone.

"SANRAL is confident that with use of the appropriate funding tools, the use of sophisticated technology, and encouraging of people to enter the engineering and technical professions, the national road grid will continue to improve and serve the growth of the economy and the development of the social fabric of South Africa.”

Source: http://www.servicepublication.co.za/index.php/breaking-news/77-roads-go-downhill