R4D Saint Helena

Transport planning/road investment modelling

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 18:00 GMT

Project Status: Completed
Project Background: To develop the means for carrying out investment appraisal of road projects.

Actual Outputs: • VOC/road roughness relationships vary widely with location. However, data from different countries can be applied to the same model form (e.g. HDM4) using country specific parameters.

• Fuel consumption in congested conditions can be predicted using simple regression models. HDM3 grossly over-predicted consumption for light vehicles and trucks.

• MERLIN provides accurate roughness measurement but under-predicts roughness on hand laid penetration Macadam surfaces.

• Existing models allow for optimisation of maintenance strategies for well constructed gravel roads but not for paved roads where time scales are longer and deterioration more complex.

The research will have provided valuable information to the HDM4 development project and has highlighted the need for further research into the relationship between road condition and maintenance costs.

Overseas Territories - global environment facility Phase I (scoping study)

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 18:00 GMT

Project Status: Completed
Project Background: DFID wishes to support local initiatives that address global environmental issues in the UK's overseas territories. It is intended to address the additional costs that these territories may incur, through ratifying multilateral environmental agreements such as the Biodiversity or Climate Change Conventions, or otherwise address environmental issues that are of global importance. The intention is to meet the extra cost of taking additional measures to protect the environment, rather than provide a new source of money for existing costs. DFID will help those territories that would othewise benefit from international funding (such as that provided by the Global Environment Facility) if they were independent, developing countries. The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is a financial mechanism, administered by the World Bank, that provides grant and concessional funds to developing countries for projects and activities that aim to protect the global environment. It is the principal source of international donor funding for these global activities. It provides assistance in four focal areas; climate change, biodiversity, protection of international waters, and protection of the ozone layer (in countries in transition). GEF funding meets the incremental costs that developing countries and the CITs incur in protecting the global environment. Incremental costs can be broadly defined as the difference between the costs of meeting a country's global environment obligations and those of its national development programme for a given activity. The GEF also meets the full costs of the preparation of national strategies and programmes that developing countries are required to produce under the Climate Change and Biodiversity Conventions.

Project Objectives: To design a programme for the poorest overseas territories similar to the global environment facility. To undertake a consultation of stakeholders to ensure that OT's global environment specific needs are considered.

The costs of maintaining and repairing vehicles in developing countries. TRL Research Report 256.

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 18:00 GMT

Document Type: Report
Creator: M. A. Cundill, J. L. Hine, P. A. K. Greening

Production Year: 1997

Summary: To assist with the economic appraisal of road investment and maintenance expenditure the Highway Design and Maintenance Standards Model (RTIM) and the Road Transport Investment Model (RTIM) were developed to estimate changes in transport costs associated with improvements in road condition, such as reduced road roughness. Within developing countries (where passenger time savings are usually ascribed little value) changes in vehicle maintenance costs represent an important component of the benefits of reduced transport costs resulting from improvements in road condition.

In order to improve the modelling of vehicle maintenance costs this report examines field data collected from Botswana, St Helena, and Pakistan and compares the results with HDM and RTIM. Large differences are shown to exist in the vehicle maintenance cost relationships (expressed in terms of parts consumption and maintenance labour input) between the different model formulations and the field data; Pakistan's vehicle maintenance costs are particularly low. A simplified parts consumption model is proposed using three coefficients to relate parts consumption to vehicle age and road roughness. The results from a survey of articulated trucks in Botswana fit the simple model well; two of the coefficients are close to those derived from Brazilian and Indian data used in HDM. However with the other field surveys there is little consistency in the coefficients that are derived.