An Appraisal of Highway Maintenance Management in Nigeria

An Appraisal of Highway Maintenance Management in Nigeria.

ABSTRACT  

The primary objective of this work is to form the foundation of a Road Management Maintenance System (RMMS) that Road Maintenance Agencies like FERMA can immediately implement to make better decisions pertaining to rehabilitation options.

Further, this is to allow for appropriate decisions about the best type of maintenance and rehabilitation interventions to apply to the poor state of 5 arterial roads taking into consideration various factors, least of which are the type and extent of distress present and the benefit cost analysis.

The outcome of this work will assist sub-Saharan Africa, but principally Nigeria, in their goal of fostering economic growth and creating a more sustainable transportation network.

Recommendations on how to simplify input factors necessary for Nigeria to initiate a database and prepare more regionally specific designs have been made, including traffic, climatic and subgrade classifications.

Economic analysis included present worth of costs (PWC) that were derived from condition rating curves specific to intervention pavement life and performance.

Based on preliminary findings, subject to field validation, a chip-seal specific rehabilitation strategy for low volume federal roads is more cost effective over the 20-year analysis period and 1-lift Asphalt Concrete (AC) is more cost effective over the 20-year analysis period for high volume federal roads. Recommendations for further research have been made. 

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INTRODUCTION  

As the curtains drew on the last decade, there was a paradigm shift by International donor agencies involved in Sub Saharan Africa away from funding of infrastructure projects toward those relating to health and education (social projects).

Between 1980 – 1984 the share of total donor funding to infrastructure projects was close to 25%, whereas it had decreased to less than 10% by the 21st century (AFDB working group, 2006).

Much of this has been due to the higher prevalence and understanding of the impact of HIV/AIDS scourge, not to mention malaria, on the economic development of the developing world.

However, this shift away from infrastructure projects has come at a cost, as there has been an under appreciation of social and economic impacts, that transportation infrastructure, irrespective of functional 15 classification can have on the economic growth of a country.

It would appear that the line has only just been drawn to connect the dots between the appreciation for roads and basic access being directly related to health and education. Clearly, there is a balance between funding of road infrastructure and funding of health and social projects, given the interconnection of these sectors.

With the exception of few Countries, Sub Saharan Africa is unique in that roads that have been created are inefficient and insufficient to spawn and sustain growth. 

Also, these roads require not only substantial maintaining and rehabilitation, but also substantial new road construction.

Many nations that have not had the opportunity to fully develop road infrastructure systems are now discovering that the standards and methods from neighbouring or western countries which they have been relying upon are not altogether applicable to their circumstances (Arumala and Akpokodje, 1987). 

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StudentsandScholarship Team.