VISION: Road Transport in Europe 2025 - FEHRL

Road Construction and Maintenance
Knowledge of the structure and performance of road
pavements has increased substantially over recent years,
and by 2025 we shall know significantly more about how
to optimise performance using whole life costing
techniques. A good understanding and knowledge of
deterioration processes will enable maintenance
requirements to be predicted and maintenance works to
be planned in advance. Maintenance techniques will be
quick to apply, suitable for application at times when
demand is low and long lasting. This will enable
maintenance to be scheduled such that disruption to
users is minimised. It will also enable engineers to prolong
the life of the network where this can be justified both
economically and sustainably.
Long life roads and more durable structures will both reduce the costs of road works and reduce the traffic
disruption they cause. Incident clearance will be much quicker, aided by high speed data gathering
equipment to record the scene and to provide legal evidence where it is needed.
Monitoring of road condition will be achieved by the use of condition monitoring vehicles travelling at traffic speed,
and by implanted sensors in road pavements and structures that register and record condition automatically.
Sensors will be used to give advance warning of structural deterioration and enable inspection intervals to be
increased thus reducing the associated traffic disruption. Monitoring will also be used to control the loading on
structures thus enabling their lives to be extended and replacement to be undertaken at the optimum time.
Temporary structures using new light-weight materials will be deployed to relieve congestion during
maintenance and reduce the need for diversions.
As a consequence the "down-time" of roads will be minimised. Road capacity will be deployed more
dynamically, in conjunction with traffic management (see below); roads will be operated by adopting variable
configurations of lanes in relation to traffic demand volumes as these vary within the day. Variable road
markings will also enable wheel tracks to be moved sideways thus increasing the life of the pavement. In areas
of high business and housing density, special bridges and tunnels will be deployed for particular user types so
as to optimise user capacity (taxi-or truck-only lanes, high occupancy vehicle lanes, etc).
29