Development of A Hierarchical Structure to Identify Critical Maintenance Components Affecting Road Safety

Abstract

Inadequate and delayed maintenance of roads leads to road accidents. Several maintenance components like poor surface condition (big pothole etc.), improper traffic signs and marking, poor lighting etc. affects road safety. However, road maintenance is generally limited to improving carriageway surface condition like filling pothole etc. without replacing missing traffic signs, road marking and other safety features essential for creating a safe road network. Huge resources are required to maintain the road network in safe operating condition. Thus, Identification of critical maintenance components and their ill effects on road safety is the first and most important task of assessing the maintenance needs for improving road network safety. However, literature review indicated that limited studies are available on identification of ill effects of various maintenance components on road safety. Hence, this study presents how poor maintenance of various road components leads to road accident and also identifies effectiveness of various maintenance components in reducing road accidents. Further, a hierarchical structure is developed based on the identification of ill effect of poor maintenance on road safety and by considering inter-relationship between various maintenance components and sub-components. The study also presents a check list for maintenance components to be evaluated for assessing road safety hazardous conditions. It is expected that this study will be useful for assessing the maintenance needs and to assess the effectiveness of various maintenance components in safety improvement. Thus, the study is expected to be useful to justify the resource requirement for road safety improvement.