Managing Traffic Incidents - University of Queensland

A Management Tool for Investigating
Road Investment Choices
by Gary Hayes and Brad Lawrence, Booz·Allen & Hamilton
R
oads are big business, with the
operational and capital budgets of
road's authorities in developed
countries often approaching or
exceeding the turnover of the largest global
commercial corporations. In addition, the
political pressure for the efficient and effective
allocation of public funds requires the
optimal allocation of these scarce financial
resources to road maintenance and capital
works programmes. Very often, the commercial
principles, and hence financial transparency,
within which road's authorities are
expected to operate make it critically important
for them to be able to justify and motivate
spending allocations.
HDM-4 is a planning and management tool
developed for road's authorities to be able to
make technical based financial road investment
choices. The development of the HDM-4
(Highway Development & Management) suite
of programs was funded by the World Bank,
and carried out at the University of Birmingham
in the United Kingdom. Extensive further
research into the physical and economic
relationship of roads in India, Kenya, Brazil
and the Caribbean have resulted a much
improved product, and the latest (4 th ) version
of the program offers some improvements
over version three, specifically:
– effects of traffic congestion
– simulation of rigid pavements and a range
of flexible pavement types
– effects of road texture and skid resistance
– effects of freeze-thaw conditions
– traffic safety effects
– environmental impacts
HDM-4 Applications
Essentially HDM-4, based on the models of
road deterioration and maintenance, together
with user cost inputs, determines the net
financial benefits and hence enables project
prioritisation to be determined within specified
budget constraints. The economic analysis
can be performed using the full life cycle
approach (say 15 to 20 years), or the budget
life cycle approach (say 3 to 5 years).
HDM-4 enables the following types of
technical, economic and policy applications to
be undertaken:
– Individual project financial and technical
evaluation
– Project formulation
– Road network maintenance needs forecasting
– Road network upgrade programme formulation
– Network strategic planning
– Technical standards investigations
– Vehicle policy investigations (e.g. axle
limit investigations and road fleet changes)
– Road use cost and damage attribution,
particularly in the context of transport
pricing and taxation
It is important to note that HDM-4 is not a
replacement for any existing management and
planning tools, such as pavement management
systems (PMS's), and nor is it a database tool.
Rather, it should be seen as a complementary
management tool, used in conjunction with
other road infrastructure planning tools.
HDM-4 Input Requirements
To be able to fully utilise the program a substantial
amount of input data is required. This
data defines the road network, road conditions,
maintenance resource data, productivity
data, unit costs, economic parameters, fleet
definition and volumes, environmental issues,
maintenance cycles and road congestion
levels. This data is often available from other
sources, such as strategic transportation planning
tools such as Emme/2 and TransCAD,
pavement management systems, etc.
An important aspect of the input, is the
pavement deterioration profiles, which ideally
should be based on historical pavement research
and practical experience.
16 DECEMBER 2001