Deriving better value out of our roads and bridges with ARRB’s Best Practice Guides

Abstract

This paper presents the new Best Practice Guides (Sealed Roads, Unsealed Roads, Bridge Management and Road Materials) which the Australian Road Research Board (ARRB) has recently delivered for local governments across Australia as a set of intuitive guides to optimise road asset infrastructure performance while reducing the associated whole of life costs. As outlined in the Australian Local Government Association National State of the Assets 2018, the management of infrastructure remains a fundamental challenge for the local government sector. The magnitude of this challenge is mostly related to the fact that local governments have the largest relative infrastructure task in terms of asset management but the smallest relative revenue base out of Australia’s three levels of government. The replacement cost of the asset managed by local governments in Australia is estimated to be about $426b. Roads and bridges account for $150b of this total which represents about 35% of the total local government asset valuation. Road asset infrastructure plays a key role in the social and economic fabric of our communities which is why asset management planning performance is a priority for all local governments. This responsibility goes beyond the mandatory asset and risk management used by councils to report infrastructure funding needed for the next 10 years to achieve productivity and risk targets. Through an initiative of the Deputy Prime Minister, the Hon Michael McCormack and the Commonwealth government, ARRB was engaged to produce four Best Practice Guides to assist local governments across Australia. These four guides cover the following key topics: • Sealed Roads • Unsealed Roads • Bride Management • Road Materials Through collaboration with the ALGA, NatSpec/AusSpec and IPWEA Australasia, ARRB has successfully increased the visibility and acceptance of the newly released guides. All local governments and their staff should be thanked for their participation in the development of those guides, providing essential feedback that has shaped their intuitive nature and technical content. The development of the guides was achieved on time and budget and will form the basis of a new form of engagement between ARRB and local governments moving forward aimed at delivering further outcomes for the benefit of our community