Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Road authorities are mandated to deliver better access to basic services and facilitate economic growth with limited maintenance resources. These requirements are often complicated by sizable maintenance backlogs and the availability of socio-economic data. We therefore present a two-step floating catchment area method that authorities and policy-makers can use to prioritize road maintenance activities. A multivariate Road Index is generated based on a weighted assessment of travel-time to schools, clinics, and main places of work and the ratio of people within a catchment area to teachers, healthcare workers, and jobs. Roads that provide more people with better access to education, healthcare, and employment opportunities are assigned higher maintenance priority. The application of this method to the 640 000 kilometer South African road network yields 16 priority levels, with 28 000 kilometers in the lowest and 46 000 kilometers in the highest priority classification. The relatively small incidence of low priority roads indicates that South African authorities are not faced with a rigid dichotomy between access to basic services and economic growth. Although the basic access road network is unlikely to exhaust the available maintenance budget, relocating schools and clinics in isolated areas might be a more cost-effective alternative.