Basic objectives of highway maintenance.

The basic objectives of carrying out highway maintenance from time to time are to ensure to provide the following facilities:

(a) Continue to provide safe and convenient travel facilities to the road users.

(b) Avoid detour, speed changes, etc. due to failures in roadway facilities and to minimize the increase in road transportation cost.

(c) Preserve the asset and investments made on the road infrastructure by taking appropriate maintenance measures at the right time.

(d) Avoid rapid deterioration of the pavement structure leading to huge maintenance cost by carrying out timely ‘preventive maintenance’ works.

Classification of Highway Maintenance Works.

Highway maintenance works.

Various highway maintenance works that are generally carried out may be divided into the following types:

[1] Routine maintenance.

[2] Preventive maintenance.

[1] Routine maintenance.

The concerned maintenance staff shall carry out day to day site inspection of the designated road stretched and note down the damages that have occurred due to natural or artificial causes, they should take immediate steps to correct or rectify the damages. Some of the items included under routine maintenance are, [1] Clearing of blocked drains. [2] Restoration of surface drainage system including correcting cross slope of earth shoulders. [3] Repair of rain cuts on shoulders and slopes. [4] Patching of pot holes on pavement surface and [5] Repair of edge drop on the shoulders along the pavement edges.

[2] Preventive maintenance of bituminous pavements.

The residual life or service life of the bituminous pavement surface course can be increased by taking certain ‘preventive maintenance’ measures at the right time. For example if the bituminous surface course has started developing fine cracks sealing treatment, a suitable type of ‘seal coat’ or ‘slurry seal’ may be applied at the appropriate time (for more details, see Chapter – 8 ‘Highway Construction’); thus the life of the surface course can be extended by one or more number of monsoon seasons. Patching the pot holes and treating the cracked areas in a proper manner, as soon as they develop at some locations on the pavement surface are also considered as part of the preventive maintenance measures, this is because if these pot holes or cracked areas are left unattended to even for a few days, the area and depth of deterioration will increase at a very rapid rate due to the combined action of traffic, water and other environmental factors.