Road Asset Management and Consultancy

Our consultancy services focus not on the technical, engineering issues faced by road managers (important as they are), but rather on all of the supporting issues that ultimately determine whether these technical problems can be resolved effectively or sustainably. We provide a businesslike solutions to the business of managing roads.

We believe that effective road management requires taking a strategic, holistic perspective to the issues: focussing on one specific aspect whilst failing to address weaknesses in other related areas will result in few or no benefits to the recipient institutions. We therefore aim to be able to address all the main areas of road management in our consultancy work including:

• Institutional Arrangements in the Transport Sector: what should be the roles and responsibilities of the different public and private sector institutions operating in a country’s transport sector? How should they interact and what should be contained in the governing legislation and regulations?
• Organisational Restructuring & Business Planning: how should road agencies and associated businesses be structured to best fulfil their primary functions? What resources are required (expertise, staffing levels, equipment, funding) and how can these organisations (and their constituent parts) be monitored, in order to identify potential problems early on? What are their cashflow requirements?
• Road Policy Formulation & Prioritisation: What are whole-of-government policies (implicit and explicit) and how should these be reflected in the transport sector? What specific road policies are needed to reflect local priorities, and how can these best be used in prioritisation of actions? What are the likely costs of these policies and how can they best be implemented?
• Road Planning & Budgeting: What are the maintenance needs of a road network, based on the engineering, economic, social and other policies of the road agency? What are the budgetary needs and what should be the balance between maintenance and construction activities?
• Developing More Effective Personal & Organisational Communications: Road agencies (and government ministries) have traditionally been very ineffective at communicating their interests and needs to external stakeholders. This has been an important weakness to their effectiveness.
• Funding for Roads: How much funding does a road network require to be maintained in a sustainable basis and to reflect prevailing policies and strategies? How are these needs likely to evolve in the future? How can these funds be provided in a predictable, stable, sustainable and fair way? What alternative funding arrangements are available and how do these compare? What is the role of fund holders and how can they monitor the use of the funds they provide? What sources of revenues are available (e.g. from road user charges) and how much could these raise? How should these funding mechanisms be managed?
• Network Monitoring: What is important in terms of managing a road network? How can these best be measured? What specific data should be collected, how often, to what level of accuracy (quality) and how is this data to be used? How should the data be collected and what is the cost of this? How should the data be checked, updated, stored and what reports about the road assets are required, in what format, to whom and how often?
• Organisational Evaluation, Reporting & Auditing: How should a road agency (and its associated institutions) best be monitored, in order to identify potential problems early on? How can its efficiency and effectiveness be monitored and improved over time? Who should undertake this and what mechanisms are needed to ensure that this is effective?
• Road Safety: What engineering, enforcement and educational measures could be employed to improve safety on roads? How can this be measured and monitored over time? Who should do this? What should be the institutional arrangements to ensure that this complex but important function is implemented effectively and sustained over a long period? How much are road safety programmes likely to cost and how should these activities be funded and monitored?
• Other Areas: We also have experience in other areas related to the above issues surrounding road and transport management, including transport planning, traffic management, urban transport issues, performance based contacting, PPP/PFI issues, software programming & database management.

Similarly, their leadership needs to inspire and motivate their staff towards the goals and objectives of their organisation. What organisational and personal techniques, leadership qualities, tools and strategies are available and may work best to achieve these important roles? What information should they provide and what approach is likely to be most effective?