Abstract: This paper presents the maintenance financing philosophies used on New Zealand highways, and describes the provision of routine maintenance activities. It covers the road network and its management, road types, traffic levels, contract provision, materials, and innovation. The road network is mostly two-lane roads, usually constructed of granular unbound base course with a thin sprayed seal coat surfacing. Within cities, asphaltic concrete is used on multi-lane motorways and other arterial routes. About 45% of all roads have crushed aggregate surfaces, mainly because traffic levels are low and the cost of sealing cannot be justified. There are about 10,500km of state highways, and 81,500km of local and rural roads. About 2.7M vehicles are registered for road use, of which about 2.1M are cars, motorcycles, and other light vehicles. Annual traffic growth rate is about 3% in New Zealand as a whole but over 8% in the Auckland region. Funding is provided from national government levies and taxes and from local authority property rates. Reform of the road system into corporate-type ownership has been discussed during recent years. The paper also discusses contract procurement, the current and new network maintenance models, pavement construction, research and pavement technology, and future prospects. For the covering abstract see IRRD E104549.
Publication Year: 2000
Publication Date: 2000-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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