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Contents
WIN ANNUAL MEETING IN BUCHAREST THE WORLD INTERCHANGE NETWORK'S (WIN) ANNUAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF MEMBERS WAS HELD IN BUCHAREST, ROMANIA, ON MAY 29-30,1997. THE PAST YEAR - SINCE THE PREVIOUS GENERAL ASSEMBLY IN HELSINKI - HAS BEEN RICH lN EVENTS AND REALIZATIONS OF ALL SORTS FOR WIN. IT WITNESSED ONCE AGAIN THE SUSTAINED INTEREST OF THE INTERNATIONAL ROAD COMMUNITY IN THE WIN MISSION: PROMOTION OF ROAD INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER WORLDWIDE. 
At the time of this year's Assembly, the number of physical members in WIN was 132 and the number of member organizations 7. The number of WIN nodes - doing the practical transfer of information, knowledge and expertise - has increased to a total of 59 on all the continents. The financial statements as of December 31, 1996 and the budget for 1977 were presented to the members and approved. A WIN information kit with the content adapted to WIN users and clientele will soon be taken into use to promote WIN. The kit consists of a leaflet, directory of nodes, map, presentation materials, materials for the media, video card and video. A WIN internet site, prepared by the Montreal Secretariat, is now ready for use. You can reach the WIN pages using the web address http://www.rme-win-rmi.qc.ca/. A WIN Forum for the people in charge of the nodes will be established. The Forum, conducted by the Belgian node, is open to all nodes through the available means of communication. The use of this discussion forum is totally voluntary. It aims at solving practical problems arising in the operation of nodes, especially novice nodes. The number of administrators in the WIN Board of Directors was increased to 20 (1 from member categories A and B, 6 from categories C, D and E). The administrators for the 2-year period from May, 1997 to May, 1999 were elected by the meeting. After the meeting, the Board of Directors elected Yvan Demers (Canada) chairman of the Board and John Cutrell (USA), Michel Servranckx (Belgium) and Hernan Fernandez Ordonez (Colombia) vice-chairmen from among the administrators. The next General Assembly of Members will be arranged in May, 1998 in Casablanca, Morocco. JARMO IKONEN BETTER ROADS FOR RUSSIA
BACKGROUNDThe Russian Federation received in 1994 a loan of USD 300 million from the World Bank to improve road conditions in Russia. A Project Implementation Unit (PIU) for the project was established at the end of the year 1993. PIU operates under the Federal Road Department (FHD) of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation. Two Finnish advisers from the Finnish National Road Administration (Finnra), Juha Kosonen and Pauli Pouttu, started to assist their Russian counterparts in PIU in spring 1994. Dan Malick from the U.S. Federal Highway Administration served in PIU as financial adviser. The federal road network of Russia consists of about 50 000 kms of paved roads connecting main cities of the regions. The other roads, about 500 000 kms, are under the local authorities. The road network is very short compared to many other countries. The condition of the federal roads varies from satisfactory to poor. Main defects are disintegrated surfaces, rough surfaces, thermal cracking, poor shoulders and, near Moscow, lack of capacity.
RUSSIAN ROAD CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRYPreviously, the owner of consultant companies and contractors was the Government. After the establishment of the Russian Federation all road sector companies were privatized. Many huge road construction companies and research institutes were divided into smaller companies. Main assets of the current companies consist of their premises and machinery inherited from the Government. The plants and machinery owned by the companies are, in general, old and of low quality. The management and workers need training to improve productivity and quality of works.
THE WORLD BANK HRMP PROJECTThe name of the project is Highway Rehabilitation and Maintenance Project (HRMP). The objective of the project is to improve roughness and maintain selected road sections (about 10 000 kms). Other objectives are to introduce competitive bidding methods and improve capabilities of local contractors in Russia. HRMP should be finished this year. Originally, the road sections of the project were selected using the HDM III method. After the consultants made their first surveys it was obvious that the length of roads to be improved would be much shorter. The reason for the decrease was that the selected roads needed widening, reconstruction of shoulders and thicker overlays. FHD made a decision to concentrate on the most important roads. Roads near Moscow and roads leading to Belarus, St. Petersburg and the Finnish border total about 2 000 kms. Other sections were dismissed.
OTHER PROJECTSThe Russian Federation has also received a loan from the World Bank for the rehabilitation of bridges.The amount of this loan is USD 350 million. Two hundred bridges will be repaired or reconstructed with the help of this loan.This past spring the first bids were called in for this project. Consultants have been selected and they have started their work. The Russian Federation is now negotiating a loan to improve roads in Siberia, too. The loan amount may be USD 500 million.
PREVIOUS PRACTICES IN RUSSIAIn the past research institutes prepared project documents and very detailed drawings for the projects.Contract prices were negotiated with the contractors. The contract type was a lump sum contract. The contractors took care of supervision of works. The outcome of this practice was poor quality of the works.
DESIGN IN HRMPFive consultants, two American, one Italian and three Finnish companies, were selected to do the design. All of these companies had a joint venture or a local partner.The task of the consultancy companies was to do the necessary investigation, drawings and complete sets of bidding documents as well as to supervise works. Due to the delays in signing the loan agreement, the consultants had limited time, only one winter season, to complete their work for the first bidding round. This unfortunate event caused later many troubles. The investigations were inadequate and the solutions in some cases impractical. The terms of reference required that the design should be done according to the Russian design standards and norms. Unluckily, at that time there was no clear practice how to design rehabilitation works in Russia. Even Russian partners did not know exactly what should be included in design works. This was a reason to many quarrels between the Client and the consultants. One of the consultants prepared specifications for the project and other consultants used them as models for their specifications. The specifications were a mix of American and Russian specifications. Due to limited time to prepare the specifications, the result was not quite satisfactory. Nevertheless, the specifications were the first modern specifications in Russia and they formed a good basis for further improvements. Since the consultants tried to minimize project costs, a solution was usually a thin overlay. However, later on, after acceptance of the design, the Client found out that thin overlays do not perform on the selected roads because of heavy traffic and uneven cracked existing surfaces. Therefore, the consultants had to redesign many road sections.
PROCUREMENT IN HRMPPIU executed all the procedures of procurement. The standard procurement methods of the World Bank were followed. The procurement method was international competitive bidding. More than one hundred contractors prequalified for HRMP.Bids were called for in several phases: at first the bids for the pilot projects and then for the normal bids in four phases. A total of 22 construction contracts were signed. All the contracts were given to European or Russian contractors. The wide variation in bid prices reflects difficulties in estimating bid prices in Russian conditions.
SUPERVISION IN HRMPIt was the consultants' Russian staff who supervised the contractors in practice because of the small number of foreigners. Foreigners served mainly as Project Managers, in quality assurance tasks and giving on-the-job training for Russians.In the beginning it was difficult for the inexperienced Russian staff to supervise the works. The Russian engineers were now working for the first time in their life in supervision teams. This situation created misunderstandings between the parties and PIU was often involved in settlements of disputes. Quality of the works was usually satisfactory. However, in some cases the contractors did not meet the specifications and the works were accepted with reduced prices.
CONTRACTORS' PROBLEMSThe western contractors in Russia reported many unforeseen obstacles.Customs formalities in bringing in plants and machinery may require several months and customs regulations change frequently. Local authorities may delay erection of plants by requiring vartous permits. Mineral aggregate for asphalt concrete must be hauled by trains from distant (more than 1000 kms) sources. Compiling aggregate for a big project requires an entire winter season. Train transport is also unreliable. Bitumen and filler of good quality are not always available. Financial risks are high if the contract prices are not fully covered for price escalation. Agreements with local partners are often worth only the paper on which they are written. A local partner respects the agreement only if it is profitable for him. Local "insurance companies" may offer expensive insurance policies.
CONSULTANTS' PROBLEMSThe western consultants mentioned vartous difficulties.The relations between the parties (client, consultant and contractor) are not similar to western practice. Everything must be done by the book, the Russian norms. A modern approach to the problems is often rejected. Most decisions are done on the highest organizational level. Delegation of authority is practically non-existent. Lack of cooperation is common between the parties and local partners are not always very reliable.
PIU PERSONNELDuring my 2.5 years'working period in Moscow, the number of Russian engineers grew from five to fifteen. All the engineers have good theoretical education and they have received on- the-job training. Many of them have been in training abroad, for example in Finland or the USA. Now, the Russian counterparts have gained experience in their work and they are able to do all the PIU activities. These engineers will be in key position when FHD takes care of the development of contracting procedures in Russia. The experience that they gained in PIU will help them in future tasks.Finnra continues to assist PIU also in the future. Mr. PAULI POUTTU, Finnra FINNISH PMS EXPERTISE TO HUNGARY POLAND AND SWEDEN
BACKGROUNDThe lack of funding is the most common problem faced by any road administration, both in developed and in developing countries. Advanced methods and software tools are needed to analyse data, and convince the decision-makers to provide road administration with adequate funding to preserve the national road networks.The Finnish National Road Administration, Finnra, has developed a system, Highway Investment Programming System, HIPS, for economic analysis of maintenance and rehabilitation strategies of paved roads. This system has been in use in Finland since the late 1980's. Moreover, the system has been modified and implemented in three other European countries; Hungary, Poland and Sweden.
THE HIPS SYSTEMHI PS is a network-level pavement management system, developed by Finnra. The development work was initiated by Dr. Antti Talvitie in 1985, and the first versions of the system were taken into use in the late 1980's. The system is used to analyse several types of problems concerning strategic analysis of paved road networks (Figure 4). The following types of analysis, for example, can be done:
There are two main application areas of HIPS in Finland: (i) estimation of the optimal condition of the road network, and (ii) allocation of a given budget to nine road districts. In addition, HIPS is used to simulate various roadkeeping strategies, both at national and at district level.
PROJECTS IN HUNGARY, POLAND AND SWEDENFinnra has conducted HIPS projects in Hungary, Poland and Sweden since 1994. The basic framework in these projects has been to test and implement the system in local circumstances.The work in Hungary was executed together with the Ministry of Transportation, Communication and Water Management; the Road Management and Co-ordinating Directorate (UKIG); and Object Ltd, as a part of a loan from the World Bank. At the first phase of the project, the HIPS system was used to simulate the strategic analysis process by using partly Finnish and Hungarian data. The work of the second phase concentrated on modification and implementation of HIPS to be used by UKIG where it has been further used for strategic analysis, mainly for providing the dialogue at the Ministry level with results, but also for resource allocation between road directorates. The approach in Poland was similar to that in Hungary. The work was done together with the Road Network Development Planning Office (BPRSD) and Dro-konsult Ltd, again as a part of a loan from the World Bank. The work comprised the modification and implementation of HIPS for BPRSD where it is being used for strategic analysis as a part of an overall pavement management system. At the end of 1994 the Swedish National Road Administration (SNRA) started to study the possibilities to utilise HIPS for network-level analysis. During 1995 a full-scale test of the system was conducted in co-operation with Finnra and 100GEN Ltd. Based on this test an analysis of the Swedish road network was performed during 1996. The results of the analysis have been used in the planning process to establish a 10-year plan for 1998 - 2007, and the work is being continued in 1997.
CONCLUSIONSThe experiences of using HIPS in these countries have shown that there is a need for this type of system. In all these three countries, road inventories and road condition measurements had already taken place for some time, but no proper system for network-level analysis had yet been implemented.Although the system itself is not a very userfriendly, off-the-shelf software product, it can be used to satisfy the following major needs of a road administration: (a) a tool to assist and provide decision-makers with strategic analysis results, and (b) a framework for training of both users and decision-makers to modern highway management. The feedback from Hungary, Poland and Sweden has been versatile. The experiences in Hungary have shown how important system management and a functioning organisation are. The analysis results both in Hungary and Poland revealed that the current budgets are only a fraction of what is needed for sustainable maintenance of the road network, and this initiated more discussions of funding. The importance of road user costs, and the differences between main and minor road networks were highlighted in Sweden. Finally, it has to be remembered that a pavement management system is not only the system itself, but it includes the system, organisation, data collection, and utilisation of results. The development and utilisation of a pavement management system is a continuous process, which, in every organisation, needs stable and sustainable funding and support from the top management. Mr. PERTTI VIRTALA, Finnra PRACTICAL INNOVATION IN FINNRA - SUCCESSES
Westem European Road Directors, WERD, learn from one another by sharing their experiences in road management. Lately, each national road administration reported to one another the three most important innovations, road sector applications or activities they considered the greatest successes in their road administrations during the recent years.
FinnContact presents here the greatest successes brought by the Finnish National Road Administration to the WERD forum.
1. NEW DIRECTION OF FINNRAThe objective of the new directionThe overall course of the development of Finnra indicates that the client vs. producer set-up will become increasingly common even in the production of public services. The client, being a public authority organization, will be responsible for contacting the customers and interest groups and fulfilling their needs. The producer organizations come into competition with the private sector. The competitive situation means that commercial principles will be applied even in the production of public services. Organization development According to the Ministry of Transport and Communications, Finnra was to be converted into a road authority organization responsible for road administration and a separate public enterprise responsible for production. The government agency would be responsible for the authority and administrative functions now vested in Finnra. It would use competitive tendering procedures to acquire from producers in an open market, including the new public enterprise, the services and products needed for the development and maintenance of public roads. The public enterprise would, in accordance with the law on public enterprises, provide the kind of products and services currently provided by Finnra's production organization. It was decided to aim at a gradual opening of road management production to competition as soon as the production organization has been converted into a public enterprise. The objective was that the new organizations could start operating, after political discussion and decisions, at the beginning of 1998. Fig. 5: Current organization chart of the Finnish National Road Administration Results of the development The developmental work so far accomplished by Finnra has modified the general organization and work culture. The road authority part has been able to focus better on the role of an expert of road traffic being responsible for the functionality of road traffic and its development as a part of the whole traffic system. In the production part, although for the time being an authority organization, the development has modified the way of thinking towards appreciating commercial principles and internal entrepreneurship. It has made it possible to evaluate functioning and planning from new business- oriented viewpoints.
2. ASTO - THE FINNISH ASPHALT PAVEMENT RESEARCH PROGRAMMEThe Finnish road authorities launched an extensive six year pavement research programme (1987-1992) to improve the pavement durability and life time from the existing level. The whole programme comprised 10 research areas: 1) binder, 2) aggregate, 3) additives, 4) mixes, 5) hot-mix pavements, 6) cold mix pavements, 7) mixing, 8) spreading and compaction, 9) maintenance and 10) rehabilitation.
Two main objectives were set for the research programme: i) to decrease the rutting of the pavements on the major highways by at least 30% and at the same time to reduce the annual pavement costs by at least 20%, ii) to increase the life time of the low traffic volume road pavements by at least 20% and at the same time to reduce the annual pavement costs by at least 5%. As a result significant cost savings were gained. From the year 1989 to 1996 the life time of bituminous pavements has increased over 30% and the amount of paving works has decreased over 50%. However, all the decrease in the paved amount was not due to the ASTO-project: a considerable decrease was caused by the shortage of the allocations due to the economic recession in the country. Also the advanced pavement management systems contributed to the diminishment of annual lengths paved.
3. THE IMPROVEMENT OF ROAD SAFETY - A FINNISH SUCCES STORYStarting pointThe year 1972 was the worst year in road traffic in Finland - 1156 people were killed. In 1973 the goal was to reduce to half the number of deaths in traffic by the end of the decade. A programme to reach that goal was presented. It included all essential areas: community planning, speed limits, legislation, education, information, traffic enforcement, vehicle safety etc. As a result of common efforts, in which the Finnish National Road Administration (Finne) played an essentiai role, the goal of the decade was reached. Present organisation The consultative committee of road safety outlines the measures taken in road safety in Finland. It covers all the essential fields: vartous ministries, the central organisations of the municipal districts, voluntary traffic organisations, representatives of industry and research. Finnra is also represented in the committee. The committee prepares the recommendations for measures for which political approval is sought. Road safety has improved in the desired way, because it has been possible to define common goals and a programme to reach them. According to preliminary information there were less than 400 deaths in traffic in 1996. Nowadays the level of safety in road traffic in Finland is one of the highest in Europe and the whole world ahead of us are only the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden and Japan. The role of Finnra With regard to road safety Finnra directs its efforts to essential fields. Finnra is managed by result and within the limits of its budget its annual goal is to reduce accidents that lead to personal injuries. The goal is distributed to the road districts and they choose their proceedings within the limits of the approved line of activity and the granted sums of money. The activity is evaluated annually according to uniform standards. Besides routine measures on the road network, Finnra emphasizes research and development in road safety. Finnra also gives access to its information resources to all other partners participating in road safety work in Finland. Break-away lighting columns - a technical detail improving traffic safety During the 80's several people died and hundreds were injured in crashes with lighting columns. At the beginning of the 90's breakaway lighting columns were taken into use in all new installations along high speed roads. Besides, Finnra started to modify existing columns into break-away ones. The rest of the dangerous columns along high speed roads will be modified within few years. Break-away columns have performed well. The price of the modification and the price difference between a new dangerous column and a new breakaway one has been very small, due to competition between the manufacturers. It is one of the most cost-effective measures available to road administrations in reducing accidents. The experience has been the same in Sweden and Norway, as well. Mr. OLLI NORDENSWAN, Finnra R&D Projects of Finnra's Geotechnics Unit Completed in 1994-1996 (ARCH. CODE - PROJECT NAME - RESULTS OR CONTENTS OF THE STUDY)
TIEL 3200402
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TIEL 3200437
TIEL 32000319
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TIEL 32000321
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Finnra- Research Report 20/1996
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