Building a business case for maintenance schemes

The Potholes review recommends that the DfT provides guidance on calculating the economic benefits of road maintenance.

The review’s interim report says   that “the economic benefits of good road maintenance have not been systematically determined at either national or local levels”. Having a methodology to determine the benefit:cost ratio of maintenance schemes would be “very helpful to our case,” according to Paul Watters, head of public affairs at the AA.

A spokesman for the Technical Advisors Group hopes that values can consistently be given to both the cost of potholes to the economy and the benefits of investing to prevent them from occurring, including in reduced accidents, reduced disruption and delay, and less damage to vehicles.

“Transport planners do this all the time for local transport schemes. Highways engineers need a way of comparing a smaller maintenance intervention every five years with a more major one every 25 years; of working out whether it stacks up investing now.”

The TAG spokesman believes that some maintenance schemes will have a lower BCR than others.

Matthew Lugg, leading the Potholes Review, says that “a lot of money is wasted, for example on appointing ‘fix and mend’ gangs to look for defects”.

In order to calculate BCRs for maintenance, values would need to be attributed to benefits such as noise reduction, according to TAG.

The review recommends greater consistency in datasets across the country, including by having a national definition of a pothole. “We do suffer from anecdotalism,” says Lugg. “Better data will allow highways departments to better justify investment.”

However, TAG says that a simple method for calculating BCRs for projects such as a £100,000 resurfacing scheme is needed. “You wouldn’t want to be accused of wasting money on desktop exercises.”

Local transport minister Norman Baker will provide an update on the Pothole Review at the Future of Highways Delivery conference 2012.
The full conference programme for the 21st March event is now available.