low volume roads keynote speech

7/30/2019 Low Volume Roads Keynote Speech

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Dr Maryvonne Plessis-Fraissard 1

LOW VOLUME ROADS CONFERENCE JUNE 2007

PLANNING ROADS FOR RURAL COMMUNITIES

Dr Maryvonne Plessis-Fraissard

Director, Transport & Urban Development DepartmentThe World Bank

1818 H Street, NWWashington DC 20433

Tel: 202 473 4314Fax: 202 522 3223

[email protected]

ABSTRACT

The new report Safe, clean, affordable.... Transport for Development sets out the World Bankstransport sectors priorities for the period 2007-2015. The report indicates key changes in how the

World Bank intends to engage with its clients in low and middle income countries with respect to itstransport lending program. Investment in transport infrastructure and improved transport services arecrucial for meeting the Millennium Development Goals. Low volume rural roads have, and continue tobe, an important component for the World Banks transport development program. The recentlydeveloped Rural Access Index is a useful indicator of the need for improved accessibility.

New research has shown the importance of rural roads in stimulating both economic growth and socialdevelopment. The effective planning and implementation of good rural road projects is dependent upona combination of adequate planning tools, worthwhile community consultation, a flexible approach toengineering design and good data. New economic planning criteria need to be developed to reflect newthinking in transport appraisal and fully capture the social and economic benefits of roads. The newresults based approach for monitoring and evaluation can be particularly valuable within the roads

sector. Similarly, substantial benefits can be gained from adopting a holistic approach to planning ruralinfrastructure service delivery including a more detailed consideration of rural transport services and theplanning of different types of rural infrastructure together. The under-funding and poor organization ofrural road maintenance needs to be recognized and addressed.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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PLANNING ROADS FOR RURAL COMMUNITIES

Road access is crucial to the social well-being and economic development of the overwhelmingmajority of rural communities. Without adequate access by motor vehicle markets will remain limited,agriculture will not develop and schools, clinics and government offices will not be able to supply

decent services to the local community. Similarly, if social mobility is constrained people will be at adisadvantage in making contacts and developing new skills in order to develop their social capital.

In the following I should like to consider a range of issues and developments that World Bankstaff are addressing, and are concerned with, in their work in meeting the transport needs of the ruralpopulation. In this paper the term rural roads refers to low volume roads principally designed to meetthe social and economic needs of the rural population. It omits highways and inter-urban roads.

First of all I shall draw attention to the World Banks new statement of transport sectorpriorities and the Banks lending program in rural transport. A brief review of some recent research onthe impact of rural roads is provided together with information on the new Rural Access Index. For theeffective planning of rural roads we need to take a holistic view of rural transport, including transport

services and the way that transport integrates with other sectors. Community consultation, roadstandards and better planning models are also considered, along with the need to address the roadmaintenance issue and the implications of the new results based approach for road planning.

THE CONTEXT: SAFE, CLEAN AFFORDABLETRANSPORT FOR DEVELOPMENT

Before a more detailed look at the issues of rural roads it would be useful to consider the wider contextof the transport work undertaken at the World Bank. Central to this is the recently produced report:Safe, clean, affordable Transport for Development(1). The Transport Sector Board of the WorldBank has produced this update of the Banks transport sector priorities for the period 2007-2015.

The last policy report Sustainable Transport: Priorities for Policy Reform (2), produced inMay 1996, emphasized the importance of sustainability in transport covering the economic, financial,environmental and social dimensions. Since 1996, there have been a number of developmentsincluding the advent of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the recognition that publicinvestment (rather than private investment) will be the main mode of transport infrastructure provisionas well as new thinking on the importance of governance, local ownership of policies and the need for amore results orientation for decision making. The new report reflects these.

The Millennium Development Goals, agreed by the international community in 2000 do notinclude specific goals or targets for the transport sector. However, transport is an essential ingredient toeducation, employment, production, distribution, trade, health services, civil administration, and socialservices, which are all crucial to meeting the Goals.

Transport is a large, diverse and complex sector that meets innumerable individual social andeconomic needs. The Transport Sector Board believes that transport can contribute to development infive main ways:

by facilitating economic growth and regional integration through local and international trade; by making cities work better for their citizens, for the environment and for economic growth; by creating economic opportunity and growth in rural areas; by providing access to facilities that deliver health and education goals; and in all these functions, by becoming safer and cleaner for users and the community.


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The title of the report reflects these areas. Safe acknowledges the importance of public healthoutcomes within the Millennium Development Goals. Clean is shorthand for the wider environmentalaims of the MDGs. Affordable is critical because high freight transport costs discourage trade andeconomic growth, and high passenger transport costs contribute to economic and social exclusion inboth urban and rural areas.

In recent years World Bank lending for roads and highways has, perhaps, been too successful.It dominates transport sector lending at the Bank and the report envisages more emphasis on othercomponents including urban transport, transport for trade, transport services and environmental issues.Although the proportion of lending going to rural roads may decrease, because the annual transportlending program is targeted to substantially increase, there will not necessarily be a decline in absolutelending for rural roads.

To improve the quality of the transport program it is planned to improve coordination andknowledge sharing with our partners, step up the fight against corruption, reduce transaction coststhrough more program lending, and improve the measurement of transport performance and results.

RURAL TRANSPORT LENDING BY THE WORLD BANK

In 2005 new World Bank commitments under the International Bank for Reconstruction andDevelopment (IBRD) and International Development Association (IDA) programs amounted to $23.6bn. Over the last five years overall lending has been growing, on average, at 7.5% per year. Althoughthe figures fluctuate from year to year, new commitments managed by the Transport Sector Board haveaveraged about 15 % of total lending. Over the last five years lending for highways has averaged about$1.6 bn. per year, while for rural roads it has averaged at about $1 bn. per year, including expenditure onrural roads as part of multi-sector projects.

In the following, the general term rural transport is used to cover expenditure for rural roadsand ancillary components. Table 1 shows the average approximate lending on rural transport projectsover the last six years. It can be seen that a large share of rural transport lending comes from multi-sector projects. These projects originate from agriculture, rural development and human development

projects and are not listed in the transport portfolio. They are often in the form of Community DrivenDevelopment (CDD) projects in which communities decide their own priorities and so the compositionof the projects may not be known at the start of the project.

TABLE 1 World Bank Lending for Rural Transport

Average new ruraltransportcommitments peryear2001-2006, $M

Averagenumber ofnew projectsper year

Dedicated rural transport projectsRural road components of major highway and other transport projectsRural transport components of multi-sector projects

313317400*

3.89.620.5

Estimated annual total 1030 34

* Tentative estimate. The figures are tentative because the sectoral breakdown of many multi-sector projects is

not readily available.

The largest individual, Bank financed, rural road projects have recently arisen in Asia,particularly for India (largest project to-date is $400m). In fact India is currently undertaking the Prime


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Ministers Rural Road Program (PMGSY). This is a huge program to provide all weather access toevery village of greater than 500 people. The overall cost is estimated to be in the region of $30 bn.

The composition of World Bank funding for 22 recent, dedicated, rural transport projects isgiven in Table 2. Within this group project funding varied in size from $16m to $400m, and the averagefunding was $78 m. It can be seen that World Bank does support road maintenance directly, although

the bulk of maintenance funding is expected to come from the local country. The construction andmaintenance work identified is, overwhelmingly, for roads. A very small component (less than 1%) ofthis expenditure will be used for work on trails, jetties etc. Three projects had a significant IntermediateMeans of Transport component.

TABLE 2 The Composition of World Bank Funding for 22 Rural Transport ProjectsTotal

expenditure$ m

Average perproject

$m Per cent.

MaintenanceRehabilitationImprovement, upgrading and constructionInstitutional support, consultants, trainingRural transport studiesSupport for Intermediate Means of Transport

137.4637.6767.3138.9

10.516.6

6.229.034.9

6.30.50.8

8.037.344.9

8.10.61.0

Total 1708.25 77.6 100

RURAL ROAD INVESTMENT AND DEVELOPMENT: THE EVIDENCE

Economic theory indicates that road investment is most likely to stimulate rural development if itinduces a relatively large change in transport costs (a major improvement of a long road will have agreater chance of impact compared with a minor improvement of a short road), if there are unusedresources of land and labor to exploit, and if there are dynamic urban markets to absorb new production.Studying the impact of road investment is a tricky subject, as there are always alternative possible

explanations. In fact over the years many road impact studies have been carried out with varying results.However a number of recent studies have shown a very positive impact. The following studies of macrodata for Asian countries are very encouraging showing a close relationship between the extent of theroad network and expenditure on roads, with income growth. Shenggen Fan, of the International FoodPolicy Research Institute, has been a leader in this field.

Jalan and Ravallion (3) found that, out of a wide range of explanatory variables, kilometres ofroad per capita provided one of the most significant and positive explanations of householdconsumption growth in Southern China. Similarly Fan and Chan-Kang (4) found that for every Yuaninvested in rural roads in China there was an associated increase of 1.57 Yuan of agricultural GDP andan increase 5.68 Yuan of Rural non-farm GDP. The overall return was 6.37 Yuan for every one Yuaninvested. In comparison the return of investing in expressways and highways (referred to as high quality

roads) the return would be much less: i.e., 1.45 Yuan for every Yuan invested.

In Vietnam Fan, Huong and Long (5) also found a close relationship between the level ofeconomic activity and the extent of the rural road network. Through undertaking an econometricanalysis of national data and government expenditure for different sectors it was found that, afteragricultural research, road investment produced the highest return. For every Dong invested in roads,3.01 Dong of agricultural production value would be produced. In contrast the returns for investmentsin electricity and rural telephones do not show any significant effect on agricultural production.Although there were significant variations in return for some components (e.g., education) road


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investment was found to generate high returns in all regions. For every billion Dong ($63,000) investedin roads it was predicted that 132 people would escape poverty (i.e., their incomes would rise above thepoverty line).

An analysis undertaken in India by Fan, Hazell and Thorat (6) of different types of publicexpenditure found that expenditure on roads had by far the largest impact in reducing rural poverty. Per

Rupee spent, the impact on reducing poverty and increasing incomes was higher for roads than forresearch and development, irrigation, education, rural development or health.

It should be recognized that the results of these macro studies relate to economies that haveparticular levels of development, land use patterns and quality and extent of road infrastructure. Theresults are, of course, not automatically applicable to other countries with different characteristics.

Perhaps, as expected, micro studies of road impact have produced a wide range of results. TheAsian Development Bank recently commissioned a series of studies in Indonesia, Philippines and SriLanka (7). The studies found that improved rural roads provided a better mix of transport services,shorter travel times and increased traffic. The impact of the improved roads on transport fare levels wasfound to be variable; it depended upon competition in transport markets. More buyers visited the

communities with improved roads, more seasonal markets were established and there was an increase inthe number of small business established. Improved roads appear to have been a major factor indeciding to start a new business. Although, there was some evidence that the richer sections of the ruralpopulation were more likely to benefit from better access, poorer groups were also able to benefit bybeing able to use hand carts (where previously they had to carry their goods) and there was, on balance,an increase in job opportunities, although this was associated with a reduction in jobs for porters.

There is general evidence that rural roads have an important impact in reducing poverty in ruralEthiopia. In an analysis of a range of different factors, Dercon (8) found that the presence or absence ofa road was the major factor in reducing rural poverty. Although average consumption in the study areasrose by 8% between 1989 and 1994, just over 50% of the change was attributed to road infrastructureand location. In an analysis drawing on more recent data from Ethiopia, Dercon and Hoddinott(9) have

found that increasing road quality to enable reasonable accessibility in the wet season had a major effectin stimulating higher consumption growth. There appears to be a persistent cumulative effect ofimproving road quality. The better the level of past road quality then the higher the subsequent growthrate.

The benefits of road investment are not confined to economics. Levy (10) found that inMorocco improved roads led directly to an improvement in the quality of education. It was easier torecruit and retain teachers and absenteeism of both teachers and students dropped. Similarly the ruralpopulation doubled their use of health care services, the supply of medicine improved and it becameeasier to implement immunization programs. Women and girls benefited especially from the provisionof all-weather access roads. Girls enrolment in primary education trebled, very largely because, withthe improved roads, butane gas became affordable and it was no longer necessary for the daily

collection of firewood for cooking and heating. Rural-urban interaction also increased several-fold as itbecame easier for people to visit their relations.

An investigation of Pakistan data has also indicated the social benefits of roads. A recentanalysis suggests that the presence of an all-weather road in a village is associated with higher schoolenrolment rates. The enrolment rate for girls living in villages with all-weather road access was 41%compared with 27% for those living in villages without all weather road access. Higher female literacyrates, higher immunization and more births assisted by a skilled attendant were also found to beassociated with the presence of all-weather roads (11). The importance of adequate transport services


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for improving key health outcomes such as the rates of maternal and infant mortality is emphasized in areview by Babinard and Roberts (12). The situation is most serious in Sub-Saharan Africa where poortransport not only inhibits user access to health facilities (particularly for emergency cases) but alsoconstrains the staffing and equipping of the remote facilities. In addition, the maternal mortality rate ismore than double the average for developing countries and more than 40 times the rate for high incomecountries.

It should not be forgotten that roads can also be crucial for the political integration of a countryand may assist with helping to reduce tribal and ethnic tensions. The World Bank has received anumber of requests from governments for road programs where these issues have been the main motivesfor intervention.

THE RURAL ACCESS INDEX

The Rural Access Index was established by the World Bank Transport Sector Board as one of severalkey diagnostic measures of the sector. It was later adopted as one of the indicators that capture keyaspects of development for the Results Measurement System of the 14th round of InternationalDevelopment Association (IDA-14) that was launched in July 2005 for the 81 countries that receiveIDA concessionary assistance. The Index measures the percentage of the rural population that lives

within two kilometers (typically equivalent to a walk of 20-25 minutes) of an all-season road. An all-season road is a road that is motorable all year round by the prevailing means of transport (typically apick-up or truck that does not have four-wheel-drive). Occasional interruptions of short duration due topoor weather are accepted (13). Current estimates of all season access are provided in Figure 1.

0 20 40 60 80 100

Sub-Saharan Africa (24)

Middle East & North Africa (5)

Latin America & Caribbean (7)

South Asia (4)

Europe & Central Asia (16)

East Asia (8)

Per cent

Note numbers in brackets indicate the number of countries

FIGURE 1 Percentage of Rural Population with All-Season Access

Improved transport plays a key contribution in achieving many of the Millennium DevelopmentGoal targets in helping to reduce extreme poverty and assists with improving health, education andtrade. Surveys have shown that poor people recognize isolation as a major contributor to their overallpoverty and marginalization. The Rural Access Index provides a measure of isolation and represents auseful indicator of the need for improved accessibility in helping to achieve the MDGs.

There are various ways in which the Rural Access Index might be measured including drawingdata from maps, GIS data and satellite imagery and from ground based household surveys. Currently a


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Transport and Access Module has been prepared for field testing to be incorporated within the LivingStandards Measurement Survey (LSMS) that is currently undertaken within many countries on a regularbasis.

ASSESSING COMMUNITY PRIORITIES

In the past rural road investment used to be planned by engineers and economists with the minimum of

local consultation. The feasibility of any investment was almost exclusively based upon engineeringstudies and forecast traffic volumes. Now, of course, environmental and social assessments have to bemade and particular attention needs to be given to the real wishes of the community. Roads can nolonger be planned in isolation. Particular care is taken with ensuring both a minimum of resettlementand that adequate compensation is paid. The World Bank places a great deal of importance in trying tounderstand both what people want from the investment and how it will integrate with other local socialand economic infrastructure. Community consultation is now crucial to both planning and tomonitoring the impact and outcomes of the investment.

In discussions, particular attention is paid towards listening to the needs and priorities ofwomen. In poorer countries, at village level, the transport burden on women, particularly for collectingwater and firewood, is huge, often many times that of men. For longer distance transport womens

priorities are most often directed towards access to health care facilities and markets while men tend tobe more interested in access to the towns for employment.

Many rural road prioritization procedures start by asking local communities to provide a list ofthe most wanted interventions. From this candidate list an engineering and economic analysis may beundertaken to provide the final program. This dual approach ensures that every investment is activelywanted and valued by the community and makes economic and engineering sense. The Ghanaian feederroad prioritization procedure is an example (14).

Increasingly, with rural road projects there is a facility to provide other small scale investmentsthat communities feel would be particularly beneficial and would complement the road investment.Examples include lay-bys and markets but they might also be items such as a school building, a clinic or

a football field. But unusual requests can also arise. Recently social development consultants workingwith a road project in Nepal have reported a strong wish for a funeral rites facility. Such investmentscan help to broaden the appeal of a project and thus help to facilitate and speed up its implementation.

Very often rural road projects can arise as result of infrastructure grants to communities inwhich the community has a choice of a variety of possible investments. Such initiatives are oftenreferred to as Community Driven Development, or CDD, projects. Although road projects (beinghighly valued by communities) are often very popular under CDD arrangements, care needs to be takento ensure that the subsequent maintenance of the roads will be undertaken. Because such projectsgenerally arise outside of the immediate sponsorship of the district or local road administration there isoften a weakness in providing for their subsequent maintenance.

Communities often express interest in being involved in road construction. Labor intensive andlabor based work can provide a very significant cash benefit to local communities. (The new nationalrural access program in Afghanistan was designed to be a major contributor to the countrys welfaresafety net.) Similarly, communities may also express a strong desire to eliminate or reduce the dustfrom roads, particularly where roads pass through a village. Both of these concerns should be taken onboard by engineers and planners.


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INTEGRATED DEVELOPMENT PLANNING

Recent research undertaken in Peru by the World Bank has shown that considerable synergies can ariseif different types of rural infrastructure are provided together (15). Analysis has shown that rural incomelevels will rise much more if all-weather roads are provided together with the provision of water,electricity and telephones compared with the cases whereby these components are provided separately.Obviously if all these components are provided together it becomes much easier to develop rural

industries and agricultural processing than when some of the elements are missing.

Within the World Bank, the transport group has been in the forefront in promoting effectiveplanning tools such as the Integrated Rural Accessibility Planning (IRAP) tool for district levelintegrated development planning. IRAP was originally developed by transport planners within theInternational Labor Organization to assist with planning the location of both social facilities (e.g., watersources, schools, clinics, hospitals, markets, shops, woodlots, government offices) and roads, tracks,footpaths and transport services. It is based on mapping the location of households, facilities andtransport links. Local communities are encouraged to participate in the mapping exercise. The procedurehas been successfully adopted in a range of countries in Africa and Asia.

A GIS based IRAP map of the settlements and facilities in a district can now be a very powerful

tool for planning. Such an operational map has recently been prepared for the Ntchisi district inMalawi. The District Commissioner and the District Director of Planning and Development have beenable to make good use of the information and they are both very enthusiastic about the approach. Withthe new planning tool a much more rational approach can now be made to planning the location of roadsand new facilities and it is possible to effectively resist irrational pressures by various sections of thepopulation. Although developing the database involved a considerable initial effort, the fact that thedata was largely supplied by the local population has established its credibility and acceptance in thedistrict.

ROADS AND THE RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHER TYPES OF TRANSPORT

INFRASTRUCTURE AND SERVICES

World Bank initiatives supporting rural roads are often specified as rural transport projects. The

provision is there to support a wide range of transport infrastructure improvements besides rural roads.Examples include wharfs and jetties, footpaths and tracts and animal trails, pedestrian footbridges etc.Although the other types of infrastructure may make up a small percentage of the budget theintervention can nevertheless be very cost effective and appropriate. Animal transport is particularlyimportant in the mountainous areas of countries like Peru, Ethiopia and Nepal. Recent researchundertaken under the Sub-Saharan Africa Transport Program in several African countries has pointed tothe hitherto unrecognised dominance of bicycle transport for longer distance passenger trips by largesections of the rural population in many African countries.

The improvement of grass routes non-road infrastructure can, if designed well, helpconcentrate the flows of goods and people on conventional roads and thus help to make their long termmaintenance and viability a reality. However road investment alone cannot guarantee that there will be

adequate transport services to meet the needs of the population. Too often conventional transportservices are very infrequent, expensive and dangerous. Uncompetitive practices by equipment suppliersand transport operators can lead to very high transport tariffs, particularly in Africa (16). To helpimprove accessibility and mobility Bank staff have been keen to explore ways of supporting ruraltransport through measures such as Intermediate Means of Transport (IMT) promotional programsinvolving demonstrations, publicity and low cost loans. Also there is an interest in finding how toincrease the frequency and reliability of conventional rural transport services. A current project in Nepalis investigating how to achieve this.


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RURAL ROAD STANDARDS

Because the costs of moving goods by non-road solutions are often very high, and because governmentand most organizations are so dependent on motor vehicle transport, basic road access is critical to thedevelopment of nearly all communities. The provision of basic road access is discussed in detail byLebo and Schelling (17). Where funds are limited and rural traffic volumes are in the order of five orso motorized vehicles per day (for example, in much of the less densely populated parts of rural Africa)

a spot improvement approach, that involves undertaking the minimum possible work to achieve basicvehicle access, makes sense. Nevertheless, where conditions warrant it may also be appropriate toprovide a gravel or a paved surface. In Vietnam many densely populated areas now support hundreds ofmotorcycles per day. Gravel roads are unpopular, partly because of the dust problem but also becausemotorcycles can easily skid on the loose surface and, in such conditions, a paved surface is probablymost appropriate, even though this may not be indicated by road planning models. Similarly researchundertaken on roads in the mountains of Vietnam, that are subject to very heavy rainfall, have foundthat 150 mm of gravel can be lost in a year or two (18). In such circumstances a paved road may also bethe most appropriate solution.

Research undertaken in Zimbabwe (19), where there is a severe shortage of good quality gravel,has found that it may be economic, using the HDM4 road planning model to adopt low cost paved road

standards for as little as 60-80 vehicles per day. However in locations where good quality laterite gravelis widely available a higher threshold can be expected. Of course, the economics depend heavily uponthe relative costs of construction and the engineering characteristics of the materials used. In moreaverage conditions paved roads tend to be economically justified at about 200 vehicles per day.

A number of researchers have suggested that in many countries the window for gravel isreducing. Good quality gravel is reported to becoming increasingly scarce to find. At the low traffic endof the scale we can do more with the spot improvement approach to existing earth roads to ensure basicaccessibility. At the other end of the scale successful experiments using Otta seals have also helpedshow that inexpensive bitumen design solutions can be used, and will last on low cost, low traffic roads(20). Clearly appropriate design solutions need to be assessed on the merits of each case.

ROAD PLANNING MODELS AND THE INCORPORATION OF ADDITIONAL BENEFITSThe Highway Development and Management Model (HDM4), and its forerunner Highway Design andMaintenance Standards Model (HDM-III), have for a long time been key tools for planning rural andinterurban roads and highways in developing countries. The World Bank has played an important role insupporting the development and use of these models. The Sub-Saharan African Transport PolicyProgram in association with the World Bank has also developed the Roads Economic Decision Model(RED) that provides a simplified version of HDM4 in an easy to use Excel spreadsheet format for usewith low traffic volumes (21).

Many engineers complain that road planning models such as HDM4 are complex and requirelarge amounts of data to use. However there are many prioritization procedures that use simple ratios ofengineering costs, population and traffic that can help to rank alternative rural road investments. These

procedures can be useful tools, particularly for overworked district engineers, although their mainweakness tends to be that they do not discriminate between roads in different conditions and the likelychange in condition brought about by any given investment.

For both HDM4 and RED the main component of benefits arise from the calculated transportuser cost savings from forecast traffic volumes. Although a number of outstanding issues remain withthe validity of components of the models and their local calibration, nevertheless, in the absence ofbetter predictive tools, the models provide a useful way of evaluating and comparing alternatives.However, particular difficulties arise for very low traffic volumes and when roads become impassable


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for lengthy periods. In these situations it can be argued that the road user cost saving approach, alone, isan inadequate basis for planning.

Most organizations, whether government heath centers, schools, extension services, NGOs orcommercial enterprises, depend upon good communications and adequate vehicle access. Where thereis limited, or no vehicle access, then these bodies will either not be set up, or will tend to function very

poorly. Because of this there is a very significant threshold effect associated with establishing access.The only way such threshold effects may be incorporated in the conventional user cost savings approachis through a valuation of generated traffic whereby any traffic forecast to be induced by the investmentis valued at half the user cost savings to forecast normal traffic. However this approach is inadequatebecause the benefits to the community of greatly increased accessibility may relate to improved healthand education and well-being that are very far removed from any valuation based on increase in trafficvolumes.

Recent research undertaken by the UKs Transport Research Laboratory and others has foundthat both communities and officials perceive the social benefits of improved access very highly (22).Currently the World Bank, with funding from UKs Department for International Development, isfurther exploring how we can value social benefits in monetary terms using Stated Preference

approaches.

The estimation of wider economic benefits resulting from the effects of transport investmenthas received an important stimulus from work being undertaken for the Department for Transport in theUK. The evaluation of Londons Crossrail link is an example. Larger towns benefit from agglomerationeconomies and are associated with higher income levels and, if transport investment stimulates thegrowth of towns, then the conventional cost benefit assumptions of fixed marginal productivity of labordo not apply (23).

Recently both Dercon and Hoddinott(9) and Lui, (24) have suggested researchers and plannersneed to take a much broader view when investigating and modeling the benefits of rural roads indeveloping countries. Most spatial economic analysis of rural roads has tended to concentrate on the

effects on the local agricultural economy and have tended to ignore the effects on urban centers andindustry. However the overall efficiency of transport links helps determine the market size of any firmand the overall size of any town. If rural roads supporting a town are improved, and if economies ofscale and or agglomeration economies are present, then industries and the town can expand and incomescan rise. Similarly if rural incomes rise as a result of reduced transport costs most of the cash gains willbe spent in adjacent towns leading to further welfare gains in the region.

The challenge we now have is how to incorporate these different types of benefits (and thebenefits estimated from the wide range of studies mentioned earlier) within the frameworks of HDM4,RED or a similar type of model without unduly increasing the complexity for the user.

THE INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURE AND ROAD MAINTENANCE

Rural road investment cannot be adequately planned without taking into account road maintenance.Over the last fifteen years road maintenance has been influenced by three major worldwide trends.These are:

a) decentralizationb) the advent of Second-Generation Road Fundsc) commercialization


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The three trends are interrelated. In the 1980s there was widespread recognition that roadmaintenance in most developing countries was inadequately funded and carried out. At the same timethere has been a trend to bring the management of a wide range of government services closer to thecommunity through decentralization. The setting up of Second-Generation Road Funds providedadditional funding for maintenance, based largely on the collection of additional fuel levies (25). Themove towards commercialization was based on a recognition that efficiency could be improved through

commercialization rather than being undertaken through traditional centralized force accountoperations.

For decentralization to work effectively it is necessary for the decentralized body to have theproper legal powers to operate, as well as sufficient funding and adequately trained and experiencedmanpower to undertake the task. Often this has not been the case. The process of decentralization hasbrought into focus the need to ensure that responsibility for different components of the road network isclearly defined between different levels of government and other organizations. Unfortunately for manycountries there is considerable ambiguity as to who is responsible for planning, improving, maintainingand funding the lower level network of rural roads. The institutional structure does, of course, varywidely between countries. Any allocation of funding for improvement or maintenance, should take intoaccount the network length of different classes of roads. The classified road network is a useful starting

point. However this is frequently out-of-date and it may not cover all the roads that are, in fact,maintained. There should be a recognized procedure for the adoption of new roads into the classifiednetwork and for transferring ownership between levels of government and other organizations. A cleardistinction should be made between those roads that can be maintained by local authorities and otherroads that cannot. For the latter it can help to encourage local communities to take responsibility andownership of these roads (26).

In some countries, road user committees have been successful in this respect. In Nepal localroad user committees were often the first to establish and build tracks and roads making use of their ownresources. Communities can provide resources to maintain roads. In Vietnam the rural population islegally obliged to provide labor (or the cash equivalent) every year for the maintenance of socialinfrastructure including roads. However where population densities are relatively low, and people are

poor, road maintenance will almost certainly require additional resources from outside the community.In Tanzania districts are responsible for the maintenance of their local networks but they can call upon acentral body to provide technical support. The Road Fund provides about $150,000 to each district forroad maintenance. A new act is planned to introduce a class of community roads whereby clearlyassigned villages take responsibility. The roads are to be maintained largely through their own effortswithout support from the Road Fund, however it is anticipated that some support will be providedthrough community development sources.

With the introduction of road funds, and the increased political commitment towardsmaintenance, it is generally accepted that the funding of road maintenance has improved, as has themanagement of the main road network. Inevitably the bulk of nationally generated maintenanceresources will be spent on the main roads. However for the majority of developing countries where

funding for the main network remains inadequate, it is unlikely that national funding for the lowervolume rural network will also be sufficient. Additional resources drawn for the local community canhelp but may not provide the complete answer.

Even when an increase of maintenance funding for the secondary network has taken place it isfrequently found that a diversion of funds away from routine maintenance towards reconstruction hasoccurred. Emergency and routine maintenance provides the highest returns and should, for a giventraffic level, be a priority for the use of funds. In fact many rural road projects supported by the Bankdo contain an element for subsequent road maintenance, although there are obvious limitations due to


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the time period of particular loans and credits. Some projects even have in-built incentives, in terms ofadditional investment funding, if maintenance funding is sustained.

In many countries now over 80 per cent of routine and periodic maintenance is carried out bycommercial contract. There is now a growing interest in how to best organize maintenance by contract.Although they may not always be suitable for the lowest traffic roads, performance based contracts have

been successfully introduced on main gravel roads in Chad (27) and for the routine maintenance of ruralroads by micro-enterprises in Peru.

THE NEED FOR BETTER DATA AND THE ADOPTION OF A RESULTS BASED

APPROACH

To achieve the best results for the funds available it is essential to have access to good quality data. Justas it is important to get feed back from local communities on their priorities so it is important to haveadequate data to test the economic viability of projects, to allocate funds to different areas and to ensurethat projects are achieving the required results. Unfortunately the road transport sector in manydeveloping countries has only a limited nationwide system of data collection. In this respect transportlags well behind other sectors, particularly agriculture. The data that is collected tends to beconcentrated in traffic count surveys and in maintenance management systems for the main road

network and in individual project reports. Very little data is collected that is particularly relevant, orunderstandable, to rural transport users in any form.

To improve planning it is essential to be able to have accurate estimates of traffic levels, modalcomposition, mobility rates, trip distances and trip purposes and transport fares and tariffs as well asdetails of engineering costs and road performance. Once vehicle access is established the mainmechanism by which road investment promotes development and improves well being is through areduction in transport tariffs and fares paid by the user. And yet this data is rarely, if ever, available.Transport fares and tariffs are, along with journey times, the only way of effectively assessing whetherthe direct benefits forecast from the road planning models have materialized and passed on to the widerpopulation. Models such as HDM4 and RED can give an indication of the possible magnitude oftransport cost savings, however the estimates are inevitably very tentative because so much depends

upon the competitive nature of the transport industry and the (largely untested) local validity of theunderlying assumptions.

Within the World Bank and other development agencies there is an important trend towardsresults based monitoring and evaluation (28). In this respect information on project outcomes forbeneficiaries (i.e., for a road project - mobility rates, modal choice, fares and tariffs) is criticallyimportant. The Banks Transport Results Initiative (29) is promoting the improved measurement ofthese outcomes (such as the Rural Access Index described earlier), as well as of the more conventionalsector performance data. By encouraging a comprehensive system of data collection that is fullyfocused on information most relevant to the welfare of users, the Initiative helps to achieve a betterunderstanding of how transport improves the well being of individuals and interacts with the localeconomy. In this way a much more convincing case for the improved funding of rural transport

investment can be made.

CONCLUSIONS

Designing effective interventions to improve the accessibility and mobility of rural populationsinevitably involves a range of resources, tasks and skills. The international environment within whichagencies such as the World Bank operate in are naturally changing and evolving over time. The focusof the Millennium Development Goals is crucial to our engagement with the lowest income countries.The Rural Access index is an important tool that can help identify those countries or regions that aremost in need of all-season access improvements. Increasingly we need to consider how to design


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projects which minimize transaction costs, achieve greater local ownership, yet at the same time areeconomically viable, sensitive to local social and environmental conditions, and minimize the risk ofcorruption. An agreed agenda to share knowledge with clients and consult with and learn from theultimate beneficiaries is essential. To have maximum effect road projects need to be planned incoordination with other infrastructure services. The Integrated Rural Accessibility Planning approachhas shown that community consultation can work well with local government coordination of a range of

different services. To achieve these results there is a case that lending institutions need to be lessproscriptive about precise technical standards or planning and prioritization methods and more focusedon achieving the best results possible for the input of a given set of resources.

The evidence suggests that rural road investment can have a major beneficial effect on theeconomic and social life of rural communities. We need to continue to develop and widen our planningcriteria in order to properly capture the full range of benefits. However we need to know much morelocally, about how road investment directly affects mobility rates and transport fares and tariffs if we areto make a convincing case for the improved funding of transport. More comprehensive data collectionprocedures are essential. Similarly we must continue to give attention to how roads will be maintainedafter major interventions are made. Unfortunately there are no simple solutions that will guarantee this.A management solution that will work in one case will not necessarily work elsewhere. We need to

continue to press for increased funding for rural road maintenance and we need to find better methods ofengaging with local authorities and communities on this issue.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This paper has been prepared with the assistance of staff from the Transport and Urban DevelopmentDepartment of the World Bank.

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