Compendium on

Maintenance Practices
 Contents

Chapter No Chapter Name Page No.

Chapter 1 : Introduction 1

Chapter 2 : Practices on Maintenance of Unpaved Roads 4

Chapter 3 : Practices on Maintenance of Bituminous Roads 8

Chapter 4 : Practices on Maintenance of Cement Concrete Roads 108

Chapter 5 : Practices on Maintenance of Roadside Areas and Drainage 133

Chapter 6 : Practices on Maintenance of Bridge Structures 137

Chapter 7 : Practices on Maintenance of Traffic Control Devices 147

Chapter 8 : Practices of Road Funding (Global and India Practices) 154

 Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 What is Maintenance

Road Maintenance constitutes activities that are undertaken to keep pavement, shoulders,
slopes, bridges, culverts, ditches, traffic control devices and other components within the road
boundary as nearly as possible in their original condition under prevailing conditions of
traffic and weather.

Maintenance includes routine, periodic and emergency activities. It also includes minor and
special repairs to eliminate the cause of defects/damages and avoid excessive repetition of
maintenance efforts.

Under routine maintenance, operations on the section of the road are required to be carried
out once or more number of times in a year. These operations are generally small scale or
simple but widely dispersed and require timely and regular interventions and can be largely
carried out through skilled and unskilled manpower using simple equipment. The need for
some activities can be planned and assessed on a regular basis e.g. vegetation control.
Regular and timely routine maintenance does reduce the burden on periodic maintenance,
besides improving/enhancing the safety for the road users.

In case of periodic maintenance, operations such as road surface renewal of road pavement
are periodically required on a section of the road after a period of a few years. They are
normally large scale and require suitable equipment and skilled manpower resources to
implement and usually necessitate the temporary deployment of such resources on the road
stretch. These operations require specific identification and planning for implementation as
these are based on the outcome of the condition surveys. It needs to be recognized that
pavements do deteriorate with passage of time due to traffic and weather. Periodic
maintenance helps in avoiding premature failure of the road pavement and avoidable costly
reconstruction.

Further, there may become need for emergency maintenance activities due to certain
unforeseen situation e.g. flood damage repairs, removal of slips etc. necessitating remedial
action to be taken as soon as possible to make the road stretch traffic worthy.

Special repairs may be required for culverts, bridges and other structures for smooth and safe
movement of traffic.

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1.2 Purpose of Maintenance
Maintenance of Road serves the following purposes:-
(a) Reduces rate of deterioration of the road infrastructure, thus prolonging the life of
different components of the road and thereby safeguard the investments avoiding
the need for new construction.
(b) Lowers the cost of vehicle operation and saves travel time. Also reduces the rate
of wear and tear of vehicles on the road.
(c) Provides safe and reliable transport service for movement of goods and people.
(d) Helps in ensuring social and economic benefits of road access and mobility on a
sustained basis.

It may be added that no matter what technical design and standards are adopted, all roads,
irrespective of class and volume of traffic, require regular and timely maintenance to serve
the intended purpose.

1.3 What is Good Maintenance Practice

Good maintenance practices are those practices that systematically identify:-
 The Defects/ deformations (type and extent)
 Causes leading to these defects/ deformations
 Threshold deterioration levels acceptable for various classes of roads and traffic
volumes,
 Treatments and solutions that are cost and time effective
 Ensure safety of the road users

for ensuring adequate, timely and regular maintenance of various components of roads and
bridges.

Several countries including India have adopted such approaches in varying degrees
depending upon the importance attached to maintenance, especially preventive maintenance
and recognition that roads form an important asset base for their socio-economic growth.

It is comforting to note that our country has focused attention on regular routine and periodic
maintenance of roads to save on more costly and avoidable reconstruction and/ or restoration
measures.

Good maintenance also enhances safety of road users.

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 Another aspect that bears specific mention relates to the employment opportunities arising
from routine maintenance of the vast rural roads network. Broad estimates suggest that this
activity can generate direct employment for four million people, especially the women self
help groups as recently observed from studies undertaken with Technical Assistance being
provided by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

Good maintenance practices would also involve mobilizing of funds, technical and financial
audit of activities undertaken on the road network by various road agencies across the states
and the centre.

1.4 Purpose of this Compendium

The purpose of this Compendium is to bring out the maintenance practices being followed
and strategy adopted for mobilizing funds in some countries across the globe. We can benefit
through evaluation of current maintenance practices in road agencies of our different states
and the central government and other countries for possible enhancement of good
maintenance practices across all categories of roads throughout the country.