Port Pirie Regional Council’s Assets team has received statewide recognition for its innovative practices in unsealed road condition assessment.
The Council has been selected as a finalist in the Local Government Professionals’ Leadership Excellence Awards.
The Assets team worked alongside contractor Indepth Drilling to assess the current material depth for unsealed roads. Tonkin Consulting developed a data collection methodology and Council staff used tablets and this methodology to assess various road attributes to give each road segment an overall condition rating. This process determined the remaining useful life and replacement value of each road.
This methodology produces cost efficiencies within Council’s Capital Works Program by recognising roads that do not need to be resheeted due to the depth of material available.
Port Pirie Regional Council’s Assets staff members were involved in assessing 625 kilometres of unsealed roads in the council area, which were split into 200 metre to 5 kilometre segments (mostly averaging 1–1.5 kilometres). A total of 2517 holes were drilled to identify the depth of sheeting, taking 5–10 minutes per hole and up to 100 holes drilled per day.
The attributes determined were: construction width, depth of sheeting, sheeting condition, crossfall (shape) and drainage. This will be used to generate future resheeting programs to commence in 2016/17.
The results of the financial modelling of the unsealed roads has demonstrated that Port Pirie Regional Council has been wise to invest in asset management and is now seeing the benefits of sound long term financial planning.
Award winners will be announced at a Gala Dinner on Friday 15 April.
