Increase the 'lifespan' of roads

Handling of problems

In the last days of the year, at the construction site repairing the road surface from km 4+600 to km 7+700 of Provincial Road 398B (Chi Linh), the working atmosphere is always bustling, despite the cold weather. Dozens of workers are working on paving the road surface, each doing their own work. The project is being urgently constructed to complete the repair in December to serve people traveling during this year's Tet holiday.

Provincial Road 398B passes through Chi Linh City with mountainous terrain, many curved sections, the asphalt concrete road surface has been degraded for a long time, and many cracks have appeared. The construction site commander said that after repairing the damaged roadbed and road surface, the contractor will cover the road with asphalt concrete and construct a traffic safety system. The completed project will not only ensure traffic safety, but also improve the operating conditions of the route.

Doan Ket culvert at km 7+680 in Doan Ket commune (Thanh Mien) is like a bottleneck on provincial road 392C. Although the culvert is not too long, the surface of the culvert is narrowed by nearly half compared to the road surface. The culvert was built a long time ago and has degraded, with poor load-bearing capacity. In order to overcome the shortcomings of the traffic infrastructure in this area, the Department of Transport has developed a plan to repair, upgrade, and ensure the traffic infrastructure in the Doan Ket culvert area. Currently, the construction unit is speeding up the progress to complete the project by the end of December.

The above are 2 of 15 projects in the list of road maintenance projects in 2024 invested by the Hai Duong Provincial Traffic Infrastructure and Maintenance Project Management Board (Department of Transport). These are locations of narrow, weak bridges, narrow roads, degraded sections with high traffic volume, and high risk of traffic accidents. Repairing, upgrading, and maintaining the projects will promptly overcome emerging infrastructure problems, combat deterioration, maintain normal operation of the routes, and promote the effectiveness of investment in traffic projects.

The Management Board of the Project for Maintenance and Transport Infrastructure of Hai Duong Province has had many solutions to improve the quality of periodic and unscheduled repairs on the provincial and national highway systems under its management. All stages from planning, investment preparation, appraisal, contractor selection, quality management, construction progress to acceptance, payment and settlement, etc. are carried out carefully, strictly, and in compliance with regulations.

Improve maintenance efficiency

In recent years, Hai Duong's road system has been continuously built, upgraded, and renovated, facilitating people's travel, contributing to promoting local socio-economic development. However, many road sections have been invested in and built a long time ago, along with the rapid increase in vehicles, many sections "carry" traffic volume exceeding the design, so maintenance, repair, and maintenance work is very important.

Currently, the province's road infrastructure network is about 14,800 km. Of which, there are 230 km of expressways and national highways, 496 km of provincial roads, 485 km of district roads, 303 km of urban roads, more than 12,035 km of communal roads, the rest are village roads, hamlets, and intra-field roads... The total length of roads managed by the Department of Transport includes 3 authorized national highways and 25 provincial roads with a total length of nearly 560 km.

In the past time, based on the review and assessment of advantages and shortcomings by topic, the Department of Transport will develop a specific annual and medium-term 3-year maintenance plan for the national highway and provincial road system. At the same time, the department will propose to the Provincial People's Committee to allow the preparation of investment in road maintenance categories from the previous year so that the implementation of management, maintenance and construction work can be carried out regularly and continuously, avoiding adverse weather conditions, ensuring progress and quality of the project.

Some review topics have initially shown effectiveness, such as topics on lighting system maintenance management, building a bridge management system, and overcoming traffic infrastructure shortcomings.

A typical example is the management and maintenance of lighting systems on provincial and authorized national roads. Through review, the whole province has 4,470 lamp posts of all kinds, nearly 4,800 lighting bulbs. Although the lighting is operated by automatic control cabinets with automatic lighting on and off modes, there is no unified management of the lighting system across the entire system, and the detection and repair of damage is not timely.

From the assessment of the current status of the lighting system on the routes, the Department of Transport has established a digital data management system for control cabinets, meters, and lamp posts, and unified the management and operation of the entire provincial and national highway system. Gradually replace 459 incandescent bulbs with LED lights, and replace damaged parts. Thereby ensuring the ability to illuminate at night, improving the safety of nighttime operations on the routes.

In the topic of bridges, the Department of Transport Infrastructure Management has completed the construction of a bridge management system on cyberspace including technical parameters, structures, bridge history, inspection results, etc. Data can be shared with units for common use, exploitation, and updating. From there, units proactively build and implement plans to inspect and maintain bridges, especially large bridges that have been in use for a long time, have special structures and operate normally, ensuring safe exploitation.