Poor road maintenance and its impact on man

Introduction

Accessibility is a key determinant of growth, without physical access to an industry or a community; it is bound to face much greater obstacle in obtaining growth and other/social services. Roads are key element in the provision of physical access to essential services (Donnger, Edmond & Johannessen, 2007). Hence road deterioration due to lack of maintenance during the rainy season has become a growing issues. Generally good road maintenance is intended to slow down rate of deterioration in order to sustain the durability of the road (Ziethous, 2004).

The rainy season is a period during which rain fall intermittently starting from June to September/October, it usually come with mixed feeling. During this period, most of the road surfaces that lack maintenance are easily eroded as a result of sheet or gully erosion (Scienceray, 2011). Nobody places much emphasis on the rehabilitation of the roads (lanes/paths) which is one of the key element of improving access to free flow of service delivery and easy movement (Ogwun, 2012).

What is a road

According to Adam (2001), road is a thoroughfare, route or way on land between two places which typically has been paved or otherwise improved to allow by some conveyance include a horse, cart or motor vehicle. According to the dictionary, road is a prepared track along which people and vehicle may travel and a series of events or actions leading to a particular outcome. Roads are paths for communication between places for people, vehicle and other utilities like water, electricity, telephone (Olojoba, 2009)

According to Baswell (2003), roads are categorized into three parts.

  1. Federal trunk roads which links the major parts of the country, the main urban centres and state capitals, the major centres for economic activities and borders crossing to neighbouring countries.
  2. The state roads, which feeds into the federal trunk roads, the farms into market roads.
  3. The rural road and city streets which are responsibilities of local government due to improper maintenance and lack of equipment that involves in road maintenance as lead to road deterioration and can also represent an increase in safety hazard to the user leading to more accident.

Causes of road deterioration

The main causes of road deterioration resulting to failures of a road pavement according to Ashimole (2008) are as follows;

  1. The action of traffic and heavy goods vehicles having the greatest detrimental effects. The predominant cause of road deterioration is due to vertical deformation in the wheel of trucks. Every vehicle that passes over a pavement induces transient strains in the pavement layers and the sub-grade. The magnitude of these transient strains will vary greatly according to the magnitude of the wheel load and moisture conditions on the stress-strain properties of the pavement material and sub-grade at the time of application of the load. When a transient strain due to value in one or more of the pavement layers or sub-grade small non-recoverable strain remains in that layer after the vehicle has passed. The accumulation of these minute stress first as cracks and later as pot holes and other surface deficiencies (Elteh, 2004)
  2. The action of weather, rain and heat.
  3. Usable ground conditions and poor drainage.
  4. Poor construction activities and method.
  5. Post construction activities like digging of trenches along the road, dumping of building materials and other obstructions in the road, and uncontrolled street trading.
  6. Poor workmanship.
  7. Inadequate maintenance.

In order to ensure proper planning preparation to actual budgeting for maintenance there is need to categorize the options available for maintenance.

Road maintenance

According to Boswell (2003), road maintenance is an activity programmed to preserve the road infrastructure. Road maintenance is essential in order to preserve the road in its originally constructed condition, protected its resources and user safety, and provides efficient convenient travel along the route. Ajani (2001) noted that during the design life of the road, efforts must be made to arrest the various deterioration that take place on it. The purpose of this course of action is to ensure the road provides an acceptable level of services to the user for substantial period of its service life. According to Adeoti (2001), in order to ensure proper road maintenance, there is need to categorize the options available for maintenance.

Classification of road maintenance

According to Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) (2004), road maintenance activities is classified or categorize into four (4) namely;

  1. Routine maintenance
  2. Recurrent maintenance
  3. Periodic maintenance
  4. Urgent or special maintenance.

Routine maintenance

This consists of operation that normally needs to be repeated one or more times every year e.g. control of vegetation, cleaning of ditches and culverts. Maintenance of bridges, crack sealing, sea coats, maintenance of road signalization and repairs.

Recurrent maintenance

These are activities that may be recurring at intervals throughout the year. The frequency varies with traffic density, topography and climate. They include repairing of pot holes, surface patching, edges repair and road surface markings.

Periodic maintenance

These activities are required to maintain acceptable safety, adequate drainage and riding surface and repair the failure of the various pavement layers, such activities includes, re-gravelling of gravel roads, resurface of paved roads.

Urgent or special maintenance work

These include the removal of fallen trees, broken down vehicles, erection of warning signs and construction of diversion. They must be carried out with minimum delay to avoid danger to traffic. When significant periodic maintenance activities are needed on a pavement, it is generally time to begin programming for a minor rehabilitation. A stage will be reached when the pavement will need to be strengthened by major rehabilitation or reconstruction (FERMA, 2004).

Importance of road maintenance

According to Adelana (2003), the importance of road maintenance enhance a national development in the following ways;

  1. Employment creation: All road maintenance agencies create employment opportunities for various categories of citizens and help on poverty eradication. The recently established KWMC (Kwara Waste Management Company) in 2003 by the state government to undertake routine maintenance of intercity roads among other activities has provided employment opportunities to hundreds of youths in the state. Other agencies like RMA, ADP and FERMA provided employment opportunities to thousands of Nigerians.
  2. Agricultural production: Past and present efforts in rural road maintenance are focussed on improving agricultural production and creation of links between rural areas for free movement of agricultural products.
  3. Industrial development: The level of industrialization in any economy depends largely on the conditions of its road network. This is why governments continued to pay great attention to roads development and maintenance as a catalyst for industrial growth.
  4. Manpower development: The acquisition of technical skill in road maintenance by Nigerian engineers and technologists through the various road maintenance agencies will assist Nigeria in its drive towards technological advancement.
  5. Research and development: Challenges created by the road maintenance needs have opened up tremendous opportunities for our research institutions, universities and polytechnics in the area of cheaper road maintenance materials and methods. These challenges still exist.

Impact on rain on roads

Rainy season is the time of the year covering one or more months when most of the average rainfall in a region occurs (Glossary of Meteorology, 2007). According to Hornsby (2009), rainy season is a period of the year or time in tropical countries when it rains a lot. Rainy season is the time vegetation grows, flood causes rivers to overflow, soil nutrient demolished, erosion increases and incidence of malaria also increase (Junker, 2008). The rainy season in Nigeria covers a relatively short period, raining from June to September (Ashimole, 2008). Both the number of rain days and total annual rainfall decrease progressively as we approach the month of October with thunder storms (Scienceray, 2011).

According to Perry and Simon (2002), rainfall is the major cause of hazards on the roads. They take place more frequently when there is fog, ice or snow. Personal injury accidents are caused by skidding and these occurs mostly on wet roads and approximately half of them when rain is actually failing. Furthermore, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA, 2008) report that 75% of weather related accidents occurs on wet pavement and 47% of these occur during rainfall events. The effects of rain on road flow were observed by Tanner (2000) who saw a reduction in flow between two Sundays of August in 1949 and 1950. The impact of rainfall on road flow has been reported on the highways.

Keay and Simmond (2005) and Pham (2007) emphasises that effects of rain on roads lead to speed reduction. According to Billot (2009), the effect of rain on roads is over-flogged. Rain leads to deterioration of road thereby erecting erosion on the road which leads to washing of the top soil and thereby leading to gully erosion on road pavement. Furthermore, he emphasized that rain lead to flooding on the roads and thereby making the road unsafe for the users. Rain also causes an impact in major cities causing traffic jams. Rainfall is one meteorological element that causes the greatest weather hazard to road (Alhassan & Johnnie, 2010).

Impact of rain on road deterioration

According to Jenkins (2003), the effect of rain on road deterioration in Nigeria has been the greatest problem which is divided into five main effects;

  1. Road surface drainage.
  2. Pavement deterioration as a result of wet condition.
  3. Water cause flooding.
  4. Ground water
  5. Soil moisture.

Road surface drainage

Road drainage design has two major objectives (Kay, 2003).

  1. Rapid removal of surface water to improve safety and minimize nuisance for the road users.
  2. Prevention of effective sub-surface drainage to maximize longevity of the pavement and protect its associated earth works.

According to Fowler (2002), the traditional method of draining paved carriage ways involve the use of networks of gullies or filter drains to collect surface water runoff; which is then discharged to the water course. Due to the close nature of this system, the capacity available is limited and can be further hindered by blockade leading to localized flooding on the road surface. A number of locations on trunk road network have been identified as particularly at risk of drainage failure and inspection by managing agent are consequently prioritized during period of heavy rainfall. The purpose of this inspection is to ensure unimpaired drainage; the most common cause of flooding in areas where drainage is present is due to debris been washed into the system, resulting in partial or complete blockade (Smith, 2000).

Pavement deterioration as a result of wet condition

According to Steel (2002), the durability of mixed material depends on either its ability to keep the water out if it is intended to be an impermeable material, or the ability of the components to resist the water, if it is permeable. Pavement can be permeable and the pavement will deteriorate if moisture remains within the mound or sub-grade layers. It is therefore essential for pavement durability that effective drainage is present to remove both surface and subsurface water.

According to Johnson (2001), the managing agent noted that recent summers appear to have been wetter than average and this has been conceded with need for more structural trick road maintenance than in previous years. It may be that the level of deterioration experience is as a result of high level of this precipitation, the section of carriage ways which has been mostly badly affected have in general been older section of carriage ways section already showing signs for surface deterioration and section with limited or formal drainage system. It is recommended that appropriate formal surface and sub-surface drainage system are introduced to the road network during maintenance operations where these are not in existence at present. It is noted that for many of the rural roads in Scotland will involve land purchase to accommodate the extra width required for drainage measures.

However, it is considered that the long term benefits will usually justify the additional investment.

Water course flooding

According to Black (1996), whether major rivers or minor water course, flooding from catchment response to storm events is a significant risk with the potential to impact on the safe operations of the road network.

Example of issues that may occur are;

  1. Bridge/culvert capacities exceeded, causing upstream flooding to occur.
  2. Over topping and scouring problem to structures.
  3. Roads and any properties on flood plains becoming undulated.

It is noted that while major water course rarely affect the trunk roads, they can be severely damaging in local roads. Such roads often follow historic routes that people that predate significant development within the river catchments (Robson, 2012). As a result, at the present time they are at a muddy higher risk of flooding that at any time previously. Where a known problem with regards to flow capacity exists, it is recommended that assessment should be made of the implications of improving or replacing the structure concerned. In order to target this work, it is recommended that a schedule of water course structure that has been affected by flood event prepared and those that have seen repeated occurrence be treated as the highest priority.

According to Foster (2001), the effective maintenance of water course and ditches is essential to the operation of culverts and it is recommended that measures to target them are being sought. Where known problem exist, thorough pre-emptive cleaning of debris in advance of predicted heavy rainfall should be considered by all maintaining authorities.

Ground water

According to Edward (2007), ground water is one of the critical elements affecting the design of cutting slopes parameters used in design include the height of ground water and the degree of movement to which it is susceptible to changes in the parameters can materially affect the design or operational effectiveness of the cutting concerned. The presence of effective surface and sub-surface drainage previously discussed for the road pavement together with well maintained pre-earth work drainage at the top of slopes, also enables cutting to remain stable in some instance counter-forte slope drainage is also required to maintain slope stability. Ground water is also one of the factors that is a potential contributor to landslide events. It is recommended that consideration be given to carry our earth works inspection under the principles of maintenance of road/highways geotechnical assets of the design manual for roads and bridges by parties responsible for maintaining the road (Kay, 2003)

Soil moisture

Soil moisture is one of the factors that affect catchment response with soils holding greater moisture being less capable of absorbing additional rainfall and therefore contributing to an increased surface water runoff (Harrison, 2001). According to Grew (2002), the managing agents noted that some landslides events occurred when a period of general rain fall. It is possible that this is a demonstration of the implications of increasing soil moisture producing greater catchment run-off. This review could propose a range of alternative assumptions to be tested in the design process producing different outputs for the surface and hence alternative proposals for drainage provision and intercourse structures. The implications of greater or lesser degrees of provision could than be assessed on a coastal benefit basis, taking account of the increased level of confidence that would be associated with a greater level of provision.

Impact of lack of road maintenance

According to Coleman (2002), an improper maintenance of road can also represent an increased safety hazards to the use, leading to more accidents, with their associated human and property cost. According to Morita (2006), poor road maintenance can take many forms, including the severe pot-holes that cause a driver to lose control or a malfunctioning traffic light that causes vehicles to collide in an intersection. It also emphasis that if poor maintenance does not cause the accident, it can make the injuries and damage in an accident much more worst such as when the safety barrier in a freeway medium does not function properly.

Road accident

According to Evans (1997), accident is an unexpected unplanned occurrence which may involve injury. He asserted that it is a physical occurrence that occurs when physical measures such as the maintenance of road, paths, which include cleanness and control of environmental condition, are neglected. An involving definition of accident is an unintended deviation from normal function of a process, persons through injuries, damages, disorganisation, distress etc. It results from the interaction of man with its creation, road and the environment (Mbonu, 2001). Impact of lack of road maintenance has resulted to injury, death and damage to property. It also shows the possibility of accident occurring in every sphere of human life on road.

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