The Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) is
responsible for managing, developing, rehabilitating and maintaining the most
critical road assets, the national highways in Kenya. TRD is currently seeking to partner with (KeNHA) to carry out a pavement asset management consultancy
study. The objective of the study will be support the development of Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) and multi-year pavement
rehabilitation program for KeNHA. The study report will
outline the pavement management technology gaps at the authority. The current
technology gaps could be in the collection and analysis of surface distress
data, rutting, roughness (IRI), video logs, and FWD strength testing data that
is needed for use in the development of Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) and
development of a multi-year pavement and rehabilitation program.
With these specifications, the pavement asset management
program could be successfully developed. The study will also
aim to establish the required support within the executive levels at KeNHA. It
will outline the levels of commitment in terms of the financial, staffing, and
policy. This will ensure that the proposed program will be of benefit to the
authority. The findings will highlight such benefits to the agency especially
in terms of the specific resource savings that will be accrued from developing
such a program. Some of the expected outcomes of the program are
outlined in the subsections below;
The Nairobi Thika Corridor
The Nairobi-Thika
Corridor (also called Thika Road) was constructed by KeNHA northeast of the
Nairobi Metropolitan Region (NMR) and extends from Nairobi City Center to Thika
District. The trunk road currently serves as a main cargo route and an
important metropolitan, regional and international transit link and is part of
the classified international trunk road A2, which originates in Nairobi City
Center and extends to Moyale, Ethiopia.
The road also acts as a main artery for various satellite towns and
economic hubs that lie along and near the corridor, including Ruaraka,
Kasarani, Kiambu Town, Githurai, Ruiru, Juja and Thika. Thika Road is therefore
one of the most traveled corridors in the Nairobi metropolitan region.
Some of the challenges
that may affect the sustainable maintenance of Thika road may include heavy
congestion and fast dilapidation of sections. The inclusion of this this major
road in a pavement management program could help outline the cost benefits of a
safer, more pedestrian friendly highway environment, as well as the benefits of
creating a more pleasing urban setting and improving access to local
neighborhoods. Under the program, a pavement management system could be
developed to enable KeNHA to regularly collect speed, volume and lane occupancy
information, which could be uploaded from the field via a cellular connection
to a database with the capability to summarize the raw data (by minute) as well
as hourly data for analysis. The analysis of the data could help design
improvements that support among other techniques, queuing and distance timing
as required in efforts to decongest the highway and improve the driving
experience.
The proposed system
could integrate the use of automatic road analyzer vans to measure roughness, distress and texture
of sections of the road allowing for video inventory which could be used to
score different section ratings such as ‘very good’, ‘good’ or "poor’, etc.
enabling the monitoring of dilapidated
sections for maintenance. In addition to those overall ratings, the detailed
data will be used by maintenance contractors to determine how and why these sections
are deteriorating. This will allow the KeNHA maintenance schedules to be properly
timed and prioritized for cost effectiveness.
The Outer-Ring Road
KeNHA upgraded the
Outer-Ring Road from a condition that had a deteriorated bitumen surface to
enhance a smooth traffic flow and improve traffic movement linkages with major
corridors such as the Nairobi – Thika Highway, the Eastern Bypass and the Nairobi
– Mombasa Highway. The road corridor is highly built-up with residential,
medium to high commercial features and low level industrial activities.
KeNHA
engineers may need pavement data from the road to create digital color-coded
maps and to rate conditions within the context of the relevant environmental
conditions aimed at devising reliable maintenance plans. For example, most sections in the project area are located on relatively
flat terrain that influences the surface drainage. The road also traverses
various characteristics of drainage zone where the first half has efficient
surface drainage (influenced by Mathare and Nairobi Rivers), the middle
sections (Umoja – Tena estate areas) being flat and hence poorly drained. There
is need for data collection on how these conditions affect the pavement surface
distress.
The maintenance department's
goal may be to develop and successfully implement a "proactive
approach" for prioritizing, preserving, rehabilitating, and maintaining the
most vulnerable sections. For this to be done successfully, it is necessary to
understand the problems when they first appear. The authority needs to ensure
that the right section of the highway is fixed regularly at the right time and with
the right treatment. By regularly presenting information based on data driven
pavement deterioration analysis and prioritization, a significant change in the
resource allocation method for maintenance programs will be achieved. The result
could be a significant change in the mix of maintenance programs (prevention,
correction, rehabilitation, reconstruction) and a reduced growth of the major
maintenance inventory.
The Lamu Port Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport
(LAPSSET) Corridor
The Lamu Port
Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) Corridor project is a transport and
infrastructure project in Kenya that, when complete, will be the country's
second transport corridor. The cost of the project has been put at KSh. 2.5
trillion ($29.24 billion). It is expected that the government will be spending
about 6% of the country's Gross Domestic Product or 16% of its annual budget on
the project that is in turn expected to contribute an additional 3% increase in
Kenya's GDP by 2020.
Under the
proposed program The Automatic Road Analyzers (ARAN) could collect customized condition
and asset data on LAPSSET roads to enable the determination of the current condition
and status of the road and its associated assets.
ARANs are
capable of traveling up to posted highway speeds while collecting data and
directly recording to the on-board systems for analysis. The data will be
collected on sections of the LAPSSET roads for the purposes of ensuring that
the roads continually meet expected quality measurements. It will provide
detailed results that can be used to address any potential issues identified as
well as to estimate what the cost to repair the road upfront will be as
compared to the losses if quality issues are not readily addressed.
Study Objective
The technology gap
analysis study is aimed at showing the cost saving implications of adopting a
pavement asset management program for selected assets under KeNHA. The study
will further help KeNHA understand the link between project cost escalations
and the lack technological capability offered by tools for managing road assets and optimizing maintenance
strategies in the context of
social, environmental and economic impacts. The outcome would be the
development of a pavement management program for KeNHA designed to meet the
agency’s specific scope of requirements.
i.
To
consolidate all of the existing information and experience on Kenya’s highways
into a documented process outlining areas for improvement;
ii.
To
develop the appropriate information for the coordination, procurement,
facilitation and management of a pavement management system. This includes
establishing support from the highest levels of management to ensure funding,
resources, and commitment to follow the system is in place;
iii.
To
provide a basis for determining the approaches to the choices between building
“in-house” capacity and outsourcing of external knowledge;
iv.
To
define a project scope to establish a pavement management software solution and
process, informed by global trends, local context, existing projects and
relevant information from stakeholders;
v.
To
define a framework of collaboration between different stakeholders i.e.
Counties, cities, other agencies etc.;
vi.
To
define a program scope to establish the goals of KeNHA and a plan to achieve
the goals.
Kennedy Gumbe
www.trd.co.ke
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