TAHIR AMIN

ISLAMABAD: The country is facing Rs 24 billion loss due to deteriorated condition of roads which need solid management system to save cost in managing and maintaining road assets, said Secretary Communication Shahid Ashraf Tarar.

“The National Highways Authority (NHA) has a road network of 12,131 kilometres on which 85 percent trade of the country is dependent and the government spends Rs 26 billion annually on its maintenance,” said Tarar, while addressing a seminar on “Road Management: Enabling Economic Corridors through Sustainable Transport Sector Development,” organised jointly by the Ministry of Communications and Asian Development Bank (ADB) here on Wednesday.

Country Director of ADB Resident Mission in Islamabad Xiaohong Yang, International experts Forbs Johnston, Ian Greenwood, Janusz Sobieniak, and delegates from four provincial highway departments also participated in the event.

The secretary communications said the prime objective of the gathering was to raise awareness and benefits of performance based contracts (PBC) for roads and facilitate the sharing of practitioners’ experiences and best practices.

He said that the PBC approach is gaining popularity worldwide as it offers several advantages over more traditional approaches by saving cost in managing and maintaining road assets, developing the ability to manage the road network with fewer staff, and resulting in better customer satisfaction with the road service and conditions.

He said the NHA has already established a separate wing for road asset management. He expressed his hope that the seminar would help build capacity of the participants through emerging techniques of maintenance contracts.

The country director ADB said that the event is a part of the ADB’s technical assistance funded by a grant provided by the Department for International Development of UK, and facilitated by Mott MacDonald.

“I am glad that we have participants from each province, especially the NHA with almost 30 participants. Everyone’s presence here today is a strong confirmation of Pakistan government’s recognition of the importance of road asset management (RAM) and performance-based maintenance (PBM)”, the ADB official added.

She further said that both RAMS and PBM are not new concepts, and have been applied in Pakistan successfully. The RAMS optimises the economic benefits of investments in road projects by minimising the maintenance cost and road user cost.

“Our resources are always scarce; it is always a challenge to decide when and where a maintenance intervention will be, and what treatment strategy is needed,” Xiaohong Yang said, adding that with RAMS tool, the decisions are based on the analysis of road data related to inventory, condition, traffic, cost, and deterioration. It facilitates a shift towards a long-term perspective that changes the traditional maintenance implementation from repairing the existing damage within available yearly budget to achieve a specified service level or road condition at the lowest cost. The NHA’s RAMS is one of the best applications in the region, and they hope that NHA’s success can be replicated in each province.

The PBM is a contract type that uses measurable performance standards and directly relates payment schedules according to the achievement of such standards. The PBM enables reduced work load of a road agency, provides better road condition to road users, guarantees reasonably balanced workload over longer periods, and improves operational efficiency. It is becoming a trend in many countries to deliver good value for money and better guarantee maintenance funding in longer term.

RAMS is an essential tool for PBM, and PBM cannot be developed effectively without a sound RAMS.

“This is why we combined these two concepts into one seminar. We have brought in top experts here to present successful cases on RAMS and PBM as experienced in various countries; they will also share important lessons learned in the implementation of these concepts.

“I hope each participant can benefit from the seminar especially through active participation in the discussions Together with MOC, we have organised this seminar with a shared objective of bringing to you the RAMS and PBM so that you can apply what you will learn to address the needs of your provinces and the country as a whole,” the country director added.

Ikramus Saqlain Haider, General Manager of NHAs Road Asset Management Wing apprised the audience of the principle concepts and system components to optimise performance in maintaining the road assets.