Prioritization of Rural Roads Maintenance in Hilly Terrain

Abstract

Pavements are imperative assets of highways which need timely maintenance for efficient use of road maintenance fund. The deferred pavement maintenance strategies results in huge economic loss and badly affects the development of any country. The available fund for road maintenance is also limited. Hence, for worthy utilization of road maintenance funds, it is required to assess the condition of pavements which needs to be maintained first and are in utter worst condition. Rural Roads of hilly terrain, India plays a vital role in the development of the country. For example, in state of Himachal Pradesh, with an increasing pace of rural road construction of 1000 kms per year and introduction of PMGSY, the total rural road network contribution in the state is approximately 26000 kms with 62% of tarred roads. In order to preserve this important asset, along with the rapid construction pace of this huge rural road network, simultaneous maintenance is also required in a timely manner. Prioritization of pavements is required in order to assess the pavement conditions and providing maintenance to the deprived one. Various pavement indexes such as Pavement Condition Index (PCI), newlineRoughness Index (RI), etc, have been used to assess the condition of pavements. In the present study, an attempt has been made to develop Rural Road Maintenance Priority Index (RRMPI) for rural road network of hilly terrain, India. Rural Road Maintenance Priority Index (RRMPI) is a function of overall functional condition index (OFCI) and overall structural condition index (OSCI). The proposed index i.e. RRMPI is an index of scale 0-100, in which 0 signifies worst condition of pavement and 100 signifies best condition of pavement. The proposed index is expected to provide better reflection of pavement condition and helps in prioritizing maintenance strategies. In the present study, the developed RRMPI has been used to select maintenance strategy for the selected 12 rural road stretches of hilly terrain in Himachal Pradesh. newlineAlso, the most importan