Cardinia Shire is one of Melbourne’s fastest growing municipalities and is located on a growth corridor on the south east urban area. The Shire has over 1000 kilometres of unsealed local roads some of which carry in excess of 500 vehicles per day. Laid end to end you could almost drive from Melbourne to Sydney.
Roads are the biggest single issue of discussion and contention among residents. Last year Council was successful in gaining funds from the Federal Government for a case study to establish the optimum approach to responding to road and drainage maintenance demands.
The main finding of the study, undertaken by Fisher Stewart in conjunction with Halstead Management Services, was that the optimisation of road and drainage maintenance is driven by a ‘customer first’ approach which demands that safety, amenity, environmental protection and economic benefit are the defining factors.
General Manger, Asset Services, Michael Ellis said some of the key project outcomes adopted by Cardinia include the following.
- A Best Value customer service charter expressing customer needs and service level expectations.
- Best Value contract specification framework that can be used by Local Government throughout Australia.
- Model organisational arrangements to assure optimised service delivery.
- Improved works programming and implementation of Best Practice maintenance techniques.
Council has recently introduced a cyclic maintenance program for roads based on a four level hierarchy supported by a rapid response unit to attend to unforeseen urgent works.
To ensure best practice maintenance techniques are implemented, Cardinia arranged for all of its grader operators to participate in a unique training program through Caterpillar. Involving one day in the classroom and two days of practical field exercises, the operators learned advanced operating principles and techniques and ‘unlearned’ some habits.
This team was one of the first in Australia to undertake the training which was developed by Caterpillar in the United States. At the end of the course, the drivers gained accreditation through demonstration of the skills they had learned.
According to Council’s Road Services Manager, Peter McLean, the course was a huge success with grading operations being more effective and the standard of roads improved considerably.
Another innovation for Cardinia is the use of temporary pavement or ‘black resheet’. This is a low cost, sealed pavement designed to provide a road seal for medium traffic volumes with an expected life of up to 10 years.
The initial capital outlay of the black resheet is approximately one third of the cost of traditional construction and sealing methods making it a viable alternative to constant grading and the use of dust suppressant.To date the results have been outstanding and have strongly contributed to Council’s commitment to sealing the road network during the next 20 years.
Council recognises the benefit of long term financial and risk management planning of its infrastructure and is pleased to have been chosen, along with other Gippsland Councils, to participate in a pilot study for the development of asset management plans.
Working with the Department of Infrastructure, the pilot study aims at developing model asset management plans for road infrastructure in the context of Best Value Victoria. The asset management plans will identify appropriate levels of service and performance indicators; 20 year financial forecasts; and infrastructure improvement plans.
“Preparing the asset management plans will enable Council to manage its assets in a cost effective manner to achieve the organizations strategic goals in the long term,” Michael Ellis said.
