Improve road maintenance quality, reduce damage caused by natural disasters

The Vietnam Road Administration has proposed many solutions to overcome shortcomings and limitations in infrastructure management and maintenance, ensuring quality and traffic safety, especially during the rainy season.

One maintenance coin is worth four renewal coins.

According to the assessment, the current national highway system has more than 25,000 km and more than 6,700 bridges with an estimated value of about 3 million billion VND. This is a large asset of the country, so it is necessary to improve the quality of road maintenance, effectively manage capital, meet safety, comply with the law and be more strict.

According to experts, the consequences of the recent storm No. 3 show that transportation is one of the sectors greatly affected by weather and climate; and is especially vulnerable to climate change and complex and unpredictable natural disasters causing floods, storms, droughts, and rising sea levels.

Vietnam Road Administration always considers road maintenance quality as a matter of survival.

Realizing the problem, over the years, the Vietnam Road Administration has focused on improving the quality of road maintenance work to minimize the impact of natural disasters on traffic infrastructure.

Mr. Le Hong Diep, Head of Traffic Organization Management Department, Vietnam Road Administration, said that the length of asphalt roads increased from nearly 50% in 2015 to over 70% in 2022, thousands of kilometers of national highways were expanded; over 40 frequently flooded spots in the Southwest region were repaired and upgraded.

Regarding traffic safety works, thousands of kilometers of guardrails, tens of thousands of markers, signs, dozens of locations for building emergency roads and other traffic safety works have been repaired and added to make the national highway system increasingly safe with increasing speed and traffic volume.

The work of repairing and overcoming the consequences of natural disasters has had many positive changes, from institutional building to resource supplementation and especially the good implementation of the 4-on-the-spot policy to repair and promptly restore roads, ensuring traffic safety.

However, Mr. Le Hong Diep said that the maintenance of traffic infrastructure still has shortcomings such as uneven scale and quality of national highways, many national highways are of good quality, but there are also some national highway sections that are limited, and the quality of management and maintenance still exists and is limited.

Prof. Dr. Bui Xuan Cay, senior lecturer, Department of Roads, Faculty of Construction, University of Transport, said that road maintenance plays an important role, one dong spent on maintenance can save four dong compared to rebuilding.

"Small damaged roads that are promptly repaired will limit further damage, preventing potholes from becoming "elephant holes". Therefore, regular maintenance and upkeep during road operation will reduce the impact of damage caused by rain and floods," said Mr. Cay.

Floods caused by the recent storm No. 3 have damaged many road works in the northern mountainous provinces.

Quality maintenance is a matter of survival.

According to Mr. Diep, in order to improve the quality of traffic services towards safety, smoothness and convenience, the specialized Resolution 06/2022 of the Party Committee of the Vietnam Road Administration on strengthening solutions to ensure the quality of management and maintenance of road traffic infrastructure has proposed many tasks and solutions to overcome shortcomings and limitations in road management and maintenance.

Accordingly, the Vietnam Road Administration will amend and supplement legal documents; innovate the inspection, management, maintenance, project management and selection of consultants for project establishment and design of road repair projects; and strengthen the management and inspection of bridge projects.

At the same time, promote the potential and advantages of maintenance contractors with capacity and experience in managing and regularly maintaining road works and reward and handle violations of management and maintenance quality.

Sharing more, Mr. Le Hong Diep said that in the coming time, to improve the quality of road maintenance, the Vietnam Road Administration will continue to propose to gradually increase the total capital for national highway management and maintenance; supplement capital to maintain the operation of software systems, information technology serving the management, updating, exploitation and use of data on bridges, roads, and road infrastructure.

Thereby ensuring the continuous operation of these systems, effective exploitation in management, maintenance, maintenance planning, monitoring, prediction, deterioration status; serving periodic inspection, safety assessment of works.

Mr. Nguyen Manh Thang, Deputy Director of the Vietnam Road Administration, said that improving the quality of road maintenance is a matter of survival in the current context. There are three major issues in maintenance: regular, periodic, and unscheduled repairs.

The first thing to do is to improve the quality of documents, innovate the responsibilities of consultants, designers, appraisers, and approvers. Respect the issue of maintenance quality right from the guiding ideology between investors and contractors, take quality seriously, and do not let any project have problems with poor quality.

The Vietnam Road Administration will build a database system of contractors participating in national highway maintenance to monitor and evaluate the quality of contractors' performance, in order to classify them in contractor selection; and have timely annual rewards and incentives.

Emphasizing the goal of taking the road, safety and efficiency as the center, Mr. Thang said that the large and valuable road system needs "subsidiaries" which are traditional road maintenance management enterprises. From the contractual relationship between the two sides, it can be upgraded to a strategic partnership to protect the road and bridge to be safe and exploited effectively.

Meanwhile, Prof. Dr. Bui Xuan Cay, senior lecturer, Department of Roads, Faculty of Construction, University of Transport, said that in order to ensure smooth traffic, it is necessary to prioritize the budget for disaster prevention for disadvantaged localities. Specific work must be done promptly, practically and most effectively. To ensure effective prevention and recovery, it is necessary to shorten investment procedures for urgent projects and allow designated contractors to shorten investment time.

Source: https://www.baogiaothong.vn/tang-chat-luong-bao-tri-duong-bo-giam-thiet-hai-do-thien-tai-192241216231140315.htm