Valuation of low volume roads in Spain. Part 2: Methodology validation

The influence of management and construction methods in the repair costs of Spain’s low-volume road network

“…The main conclusion drawn was that just 26.8% were in good condition; the majority were found to be suffering from a range of important deficiencies -most of which had to do with water evacuation, a general lack of traffic signs, and the deterioration of certain types of road surface. The results obtained by Gallego et al (2008b) show that those low-volume roads in a best condition are placed in areas with high production or irrigated fields and those roads that provide communication between villages. The traffic that low volume roads have had to take has been much greater than was anticipated, and the types of vehicles that use them are also different to that once contemplated.…”

“…Within 10 or 12 years of their construction, many low volume roads were beyond repair, wasting the massive investment made by the State. Gallego et al (2008b) o n l y exposed pavement types. A method developed by the present authors (Gallego et al, 2008a) was used to determine their condition.…”

“…Currently they not only provide access to agro-industrial exploitations, they also allow communication between villages and provide access to recreation areas -theoretically the functions of local highways. A budget was then drawn up for the repair of each road examined by Gallego et al (2008b) (Table 1). The aim was to determine whether the present condition of these roads was related to the era during which they were built, the pavement type employed, and/or whether the adjoining land was under irrigation.…”

“…Then, the paper also analyses the ownership and the finance mechanisms in force, which are a consequence of the planning of the network in most cases. Finally, the paper estimates the repair costs required to rehabilitate the network, based on data previously taken by the authors (Gallego et al, 2008a(Gallego et al, , 2008b. In these works, the condition of 41 low volume roads was analysed and the tasks that should be conducted to repair them were determined.…”

“…This work was prepared using the information obtained by the authors during the development of a specific methodology for characterising the condition of low volume roads (Gallego et al, 2008a) and its use with 41 such roads in Spain (Gallego et al, 2008b).…”