Use of road asset maintenance planning software in QDMR

Asset Management has over the last decade become the primary focus and objective of any worthwhile road authority. The focus of Road Asset Management is not merely of asset preservation but seeks to maintain the asset at a level, which optimises the returns to the community at large. These aims are achieved by continuously assessing the condition of the road network storing and synthesising the data and subsequently prioritising on the requirement hence providing the optimum treatment at the opportune time. In this background, Main Roads have progressively developed planning software - SCENARIO Millennium to assist their managers in developing maintenance strategies for their road networks. Considerable savings can be generated through timely maintenance and rehabilitation interventions and Main Roads envisage that their newly introduced SCENARIO software will be used as part of the program development process by their regions and districts. This dissertation explores the use of SCENARIO in the Southern District and process of identifying a program for rehabilitation works. This investigation of Scenario application follows a thorough review of the road asset management and the particular aspects of life cycle analysis. The report generally found that emphasis of asset management has in the last decade been fully recognised and embraced in the whole life management of assets. The use of SCENARIO software in the Southern District is yet to be implemented due to several reasons, such as the success in the current practices, staff shortfall and the fact that the software still requires a lot of local development to succeed etc. The report has found that Scenario could in addition to the identification of programmed maintenance requirements be tailored as an effective tool to timely predict the rehabilitation requirements. This involves further engineering analysis of the development of pavement weaknesses. Development of rules and different rehabilitation treatments would be an interesting regime that deserves further attention