Highway Maintenance Challenges

MODERN CONCEPTS IN PAVEMENT ENGINEERING

The challenge for the Highway Maintenance Engineer is to promote more cost effective engineering, both in the original design and for the subsequent maintenance procedures. Considerable technological progress has been made in the last decade, but as yet this knowledge is not being used to maximum benefit. In all of this we often forget the user our customer and the tax-payer. The processes are all to often driven by contractual procedure and inhibited by our traditional reserve.

After considerable expense constructing new motorways, we still present the driver with horrific visibility problems every time it rains, and this is in a country where rainfall can be said to be a common occurrence! When it becomes dark it still seems to be a matter of luck whether carriageway markings will be visible or not; long lengths of principal carriageways have appalling delineation under night-time conditions, yet others are excellent. Why the differences?