ATTACHMENT 1
ROAD MANAGEMENT PLAN – BACKGROUND INFORMATION
This Road Management Plan (Plan) provides a summary of Council’s policies,
service delivery and maintenance/inspection actions in regards to the management
of the local road network. The main objectives of the plan are to:

identify those roads and related infrastructure for which Council is responsible;

adopt road management standards which include the nature and frequency of
road inspections, the tolerable level of defects, and the time taken to repair
defects;

identify the road management systems used by Council to discharge its duty to
inspect, maintain and repair public roads for which it is responsible;

demonstrate to stakeholders that the road network is managed effectively; and

comply with the legislative requirements of the Road Management Act 2004.
Key concepts covered by the Plan include:

relationship with other Council documents – Council Plan, Asset Management
Policy and Strategy, Annual Business Plan and Budget;

assets included/excluded – generally all road infrastructure is included
(sealed/unsealed roads, drainage, footpaths and walking tracks, bridges, major
culverts and floodways and other road infrastructure (guard rail, cattle
grids/gates);

arrangements with other road authorities and adjoining municipalities;

levels of service or service standards – customer expectations, safety and risk,
and asset preservation;

maintenance and inspection programs – road hierarchy, public road register,
condition and hazard inspections, routine and periodic maintenance, standards
of work; and

management systems – incident and road condition reports, analysis of
insurance claims, road asset register, customer request management
In accordance with Section 40 of the Act, Council is required to inspect, repair and
maintain those roads (or lengths of roads) and/or road infrastructure on roads listed
on Council’s Public Road Register. Roads not included on the register include
arterial roads, forest roads and tracks, unconstructed and private
roads/laneways/tracks/car parks not historically maintained by Council and private.
To improve the effectiveness of asset management, roads and footpaths are
hierarchically divided into categories or sub-networks. In this way, roads and
footpaths with similar purposes are treated consistently with respect to decisions on
standards and levels of service, regardless of legal or administrative classification.
Roads have been allocated to a category on the basis of indicators such as function,
traffic volume, percentage of heavy vehicles, travel speed, and strategic significance.
Footpaths have been allocated to a category on the basis of traffic volume and traffic
type. Refer Figures 4.1.2a and b of the Plan for details of the adopted road/footpath
hierarchy.
The Road Management Act (2004) imposes on road authorities a statutory obligation
to inspect, repair and maintain roads.
From a customer expectation and
maintenance management perspective, the two most important aspects of the Plan
relate to inspections and maintenance of Council’s road network.
Inspections of the road network form the cornerstone of the maintenance program.
They are used to (i) properly assess maintenance requirements (condition surveys
for sealed/unsealed road surfaces, Level 2 bridge inspections and footpath
condition/hazard inspections) and to ensure that safe passage for road and path
users is maintained (i.e. hazard inspections that identify those defects likely to create
a danger or serious inconvenience to the public, or where there is a risk of short-term
structural deterioration, and therefore require immediate or urgent attention). The
frequency of these inspections is tied to the principles established within the road and
footpath hierarchy and the routine maintenance levels – refer Figure 4.1.3a of the
Plan for details.
Routine maintenance is carried out to ensure the safety of traffic and to sustain the
serviceability and appearance of the road and its associated facilities. Routine
maintenance includes planned/proactive maintenance,
unplanned/reactive
maintenance, temporary and emergency works. Planned maintenance covers those
activities that occur on a regular consistent schedule and are designed to proactively
maintain an asset within the predefined level of service (e.g. grading, pothole
patching, crack sealing, roadside slashing, culvert cleaning, clearing/cleaning of open
drains, minor bridge maintenance, grinding of footpath trip hazards and removal of
hazards). In general routine maintenance is undertaken on a cyclic schedule based
on geographic regions.
Periodic maintenance comprises cyclic activities, usually of a more extensive kind
than those of routine maintenance. The need for these activities is usually predicted
and the required work planned. Periodic maintenance includes sealed road
resurfacing, gravel road re-sheeting and bridge and footpath rehabilitation.
Council, under the provisions of Section 41 of the Act, determines the standards and
procedures for the inspection, maintenance and repair of any one particular road, or
any particular class of road. Council determines matters such as road/path
construction
standards,
inspection
frequencies/items,
maintenance
standards/procedures, defects intervention priorities/actions/timeframes. Council’s
Plan does not specifically document these standards and procedures, nor is there a
specific Council policy dealing with such, rather these matters are documented in
Council’s service agreement contracts and internal procedures manuals. This
approach is considered consistent with Section 40 of the Act.
In determining the standard and procedures to be applied to road maintenance and
management, Council has taken account of the adopted road hierarchy, industry
standards, geographic and climatic conditions as well as Council’s resource capacity
to deliver the required standards and procedures for maintenance works. Other
issues considered, in consideration of Section 101 of the Act (duty of care), include
the character of the road and the type of traffic reasonably expected to use the road
and the standard of maintenance and repair appropriate for a road of a particular
character, used by traffic of a particular type.
The statutory duty imposed by Section 40 of the Act does not create a duty to
upgrade a road or to maintain a road to a higher standard than the standard to
which the road was initially constructed.