Condition of Cored Road Network

1.1    Background
The Core Road Network (CRN) infrastructure in Zambia consists of a sparsely interconnected network of trunk (T), main (M), district (D), primary feeder (PF) and urban (U) roads administered by the Road Development Agency. The Core Road Network is the bare minimum road network that Zambia requires to be maintained continuously and on sustainable basis so as to unleash the potential in the country and its people to promote self-development as the only approach to poverty alleviation for economic growth.  This network is calculated at 40,113 km broken down as shown in Table 1.

In order to identify the most technically suitable engineering interventions for the CRN roads in good, fair and poor condition, the condition characteristics of the network were established using the surface condition criteria shown in Table 2.  The criteria on paved road uses IRI, whilst on unpaved roads, the remaining gravel thickness is used.

Table 2: Road Network Condition Criteria

Source: HMS Data – 1999Explanatory Notes:

1. 2004:  The condition of the road network as stated in the World Bank Project Appraisal Document (PAD, 2004) on a Road Rehabilitation and Maintenance Project (RRMP) is based on an assessment of the Core Road Network of 40,113km. The estimate of the condition of “good” for paved roads were stated as 58% where as that for the unpaved roads was stated as 7%. Refer to table 4.

2. 2006:  The condition of the road network was reported based on input arising from surveys conducted on the Trunk, Main and District (TMD) Roads that was carried out by Roughton International as part of the on-going 9th European Union Development Fund Consultant in the Collection of Road Network Condition Survey Report. The estimates of the conditions for TMD paved roads was report as good (29%), fair (64%), poor (7%) and for TMD unpaved roads as (22%), fair (30%) , poor (48%). A conservative estimate improvement on the Core Road Network on paved roads was made of 65% and 32% on unpaved roads. Refer to table 3.

3. 2007: The condition of the road network was reported based on input arising from surveys conducted on the Trunk, Main and District Roads that was carried out by Roughton International as part of the on-going 9th European Union Development Fund Consultant in the Collection of Road Network Condition Survey Report. The estimates of the conditions for TMD paved roads was report as good (17%), fair (72%), poor (11%) and for TMD unpaved roads as (36%), fair (24%), poor (40%). Refer to table 3.

4. 2008: The condition of the road network was reported based on input arising from surveys conducted on the Trunk, Main and District Roads that was carried out by Roughton International as part of the on-going 9th European Union Development Fund Consultant in the Collection of Road Network Condition Survey Report. The estimates of the conditions for TMD paved roads was reported as good (33%), fair (61%), poor (6%) and for TMD unpaved roads as (8%), fair (9%), poor (83%). Refer to table 3.

5. 2009: The condition of the road network was reported based on input arising from surveys conducted on the Trunk, Main and District Roads that was carried out by Roughton International as part of the on-going 9th European Union Development Fund Consultant in the Collection of Road Network Condition Survey Report. The estimates of the conditions for TMD paved roads was reported as good (18%), fair (76%), poor (6%) and for TMD unpaved roads as (10%), fair (11%), poor (79%). Refer to table 3.

Note that the condition values are only based on only part of the CRN which constitutes the TMD. Condition Parameters for the Primary Feeder and Urban road network which were consistently missing from 2004 to 2008 were incorporated in the 2009 condition surveys. The baseline survey for the Primary Feeder and Urban road roads has been established by a consultant Ramboll contracted under the Nordic Development Fund (NDF) credit, for the road reclassification study.