Browsing by Author "Mushule, Nurdin Kassim Mustafa"

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    Development of a sustainable network level pavement management system for trunk roads in Tanzania
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 2002) Mushule, Nurdin Kassim Mustafa
    Over the years, engineers were mainly concerned with the design and construction of new roads. As a result, the world-wide expansion of road networks has resulted in roads being one of the largest public assets. Increasingly, there is a growing demand for preserving this very large asset at the time when funds for road maintenance and rehabilitation are scarce. Consequently, many road organisations in the world have developed pavement management systems (PMS) in order to utilise the available resources in most effective manner. However, a number of systems were developed without taking into account the needs and requirements of the implementing agencies. These systems tended to specify requirements, aimed at high-tech solutions that are often not sustainable. As a result many of them have been marginalised if not completely abandoned. The research presented in this thesis adopted a different approach by first defining needs and requirements of the implementing agency, after identifying the potential users. Based on this, a low cost data collection regime was designed and tested. In addition, the study compares the cost of data collection at different levels of data detail. Furthermore, the loss in data accuracy as the level of data detail progresses from very detailed level to higher Information Quality Levels has been investigated for types of surface defects found predominant in Tanzania. Furthermore, the data obtained from the field was used to specify maintenance standards that are appropriate for different situations in Tanzania. Finally, a method which will help practitioners to determine possible sustainability of a pavement management system has been suggested. The research concluded that, for the sustainability of a PMS, the methods proposed are within the means of the road agency and could be used to prepare annual work programmes and budget estimates. This in turn, would result in applying low cost, and hence sustainable, data collection methods to obtain the required road management information from a network level road management system.