Volume 12, No. 23Journal 23

Carlos Campos Cruz (Author)

Cantonal Road Conservation Plans to Strengthen Municipal Action in Costa Rica

• PDF (Spanish)

Road management at the municipal governments in Costa Rica is a relatively new activity for local authorities, since the law No. 8114 in 2001, set up new responsibilities and dedicated funding for road maintenance.
However, municipal road management has been practiced by traditional policies, criteria and practices of road management in the national highway system.
LanammeUCR started given technical support to municipal governments a few years ago, mainly, from 2007, this institution tried to establish cooperation agreements with municipalities to provide them with technical assistance and training to improve their road management activities. The goals of the technical assistance are aimed to change the empirical practice and create modern road management systems to produce better transportation service for the communities and regions.
This article describes some of the work performed by the depariment of technical assistance to municipalities in LanammeUCR thru the cooperation agreement that are currently signed with 15 municipalities in Costa Rica. It deals with the main activities for doing a technical condition survey of the municipal roads and the efforts to write a five year road maintenance plan for local governments. It also presents some management indicators that could be used to analyze the improvements in road management results at the municipal governments.

Sharline López (Author)

Technical Assessment of the Condition of Paved Cantonal Road Networks

• PDF (Spanish)

A five year plan is an important instrument for road management. It can provide a schedule for the maintenance and rehabilitation activities; also this provides a guide to calculate the budget necessary for the annual projects. You need to know the network and its condition to determinate the appropriate intervention and control the progress every year.
Evaluation within urban municipalities has been on a priority basis in the main routes of the region, which placed vehicle counters, with which it was possible to determine the amount and kind of vehicles circulating. Made a surface condition evaluation was performed (VIZIR), as well as a structural evaluation (FWD) and functional (IRI) assessment of different routes, this evaluation evidence their bad condition. In addition some test pits were performed at strategic sites which made it possible to characterize the structure that comprises the pavement and identify the types of soil that predominate in the structures of the municipal roads.
A Georeferenced database is one of the main products generated from the evaluation of the network, since it allows to evaluate the condition at the macro level, not just level network project, facilitating the process of prioritization of road maintenance for the network.
A key element for defining and implementing a pavement management system is the staff which is in charge of this, specifically, the technical unit of municipal road management. Members of this unit must be properly trained and dedicate full time to road work and planning.

Jaime Allen Monge (Author)

Essential Components of a Technical Road Management Unit within the Municipal Context in Costa Rica

• PDF (Spanish)

This article details the work relating to the Road Management Technical Units (UTGV) at the Municipal or local governments in Costa Rica. They have a series of legislated guidelines to meet with regard to the Road Management and Resource Management Act 8114, in regards to the public investment resources in the Local Road Network.

The article presents the current problems faced by Road Management Technical Units in the municipalities, especially the lack of political support. It explains the problem caused by the lack of planning and prioritization and bad habits in infrastructure investment.

It details that a pavement management system involves a complete road, specifically applied to a UTGV for a municipality in Costa Rica; this is defined as an iterative process management, which has continuous feedback.

The article details the basic components in a Road Management Technical Unit in Costa Rica, including: organizational structure, policies and strategies, analysis methods, lists of projects, planning and ongoing feedback.

In conclusion, it reveals the importance of municipal authorities to raise awareness about the importance of adequate investment and resources planned for 8114 in the Local Road Networks.

Marcos Rodríguez (Author)

Efficient Management of Road Construction Machinery in Local Governments

• PDF (Spanish)

Management of construction equipment owned by local governments, used for the purpose of road construction and maintenance, is a critical success factor in road management for some municipalities. There is a technological dependency in using construction equipment to perform road management and construction of highway projects in some municipalities, however, the lack of management skills for planning and controlling the equipment can lead to constraints or obstacles in executing road projects or the misuse of money that was supposed to be used for road maintenance, then the opportunity to build better projects is partially or totally missed. This article explains the primary factors that should be planned and executed in order to develop a better equipment management in municipal governments for the benefit of the public and roads users. The factors are; the feasibility study before deciding to purchase a piece of equipment, the preventive maintenance program to preserve each machine, the daily work control system and the training actions for operators, the planning and budgeting to let the equipment work most part of the year and the detailed estimation of hourly cost for each equipment.

Gerardo Botasso, Julián Sanjur, Alba Bravo (Author)

Asphalt Mixtures with Modified Binders in the Republic of Panama

• PDF (Spanish)

Chapter 24th, of road construction specifications of the Ministry of Public Works in Panama (MOP), deals with asphalt mix construction and design requirements, including mixes using modified asphalts. This article presents the technical specifications review for modified asphalt mixes, under a cooperation agreement between Panama and Argentina, given that Panama is starting to use this mix type in recent projects.
The specs review was performed in 2008 to define the metodology to evaluate the asphalt binder, the agregate- asphalt adhesion requirements and the expected performance of modified asphalt mixes, using the properties of typical imported asphalt in Panama and the local agregates. The agregates in Panama usually have high porosity values and high abrasion losses after tested. This article also shows the updating process for quality control laboratories facilities in MOP Panama, to deal with the new requirements for controlling modified asphalt mixes, since this laboratory has the mission of executing technical supervision of public works. It is also shown that these actions must be supported by a comprehensive training program for all people involved in road construction quality control and supervision.