Following a number of staff movements and retirements, Blacktown City Council wanted to be proactive in addressing the loss of corporate knowledge and experience in the areas of pavement evaluation, identification of appropriate treatments and the prioritising of works.
Council engaged one of its former Senior Engineers, Paul Ritchie, to lead a project evaluating the City’s 1,100 kilometres of local roads. During his inspections, Paul worked with selected Council engineers and inspectors who could most benefit from the experience.
From early 2005 to mid 2006, they travelled with Paul on a rotational basis to participate in the evaluation of pavements, identification of failure mechanisms and recommendations for treatments.
Colour photos were taken of examples of the various failure types for use in a training manual – the Road Pavement Evaluation Manual. This enabled all 36 staff who attended one day training sessions to not only read the manual but go out and see for themselves the actual sites within the City of Blacktown.
The one day sessions were made available to any engineer, supervisor or inspector who wished to attend. Each was provided with a copy of the manual.
Council’s Director of Technical and Transport Services, Greg Morgan, said as a result of this project 36 Council staff have been trained in pavement evaluation.
“This ensures Council has staff that can continue a consistent approach to the management of Council’s road infrastructure over the next ten years or more,” he said. “Council can also better use limited funds for both annual routine maintenance and longer term preventative maintenance to reduce the overall cost of asset ownership.”
On completion of the project, Council received electronic evaluation results for road pavements throughout the City. The results included the recommended treatment, priority and the number of years within which the treatment should be carried out. By incorporating this information into a new five year Works Improvement Program and its Asset Management System, a prioritised works program and financial forecasting for the next five, ten and 15 years was prepared.
Greg Morgan said the estimated cost of preparing the five year Works Program based on the information gathered was a fraction of that of traditional Pavement Management Systems processes.
For further information contact Blacktown’s Senior Contracts Engineer, Karl Schimke, on (02) 9839 6317.
