CE104 HIGHWAY AND RAILROAD ENGINEERING

LECTURE 2

HIGHWAY DEVELOPMENT AND PLANNING

1
Britha H.Mikkelsen, Cowiconsult.
Ole Møller, The Danish Transport Council

Highway and Traffic Engineering in Developing Countries Edited by Bent Thagesen.

Published in 1995 by E&FN Spon, London. ISBN 0 419 20530 6

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Justification for works

A frequent justification for construction, rehabilitation and maintenance of highways in
developing countries is that improved transport facilities are promoting road development.
This is most explicitly demonstrated in the great number of cases where road works are
financed by grants from national or international aid agencies or by loans from the World
Bank or one of the regional development banks.

However, development is an ambiguous concept. Development is defined in different ways by

different scholars. Various theories differently emphasize factors which determine
development and how a desired development can be promoted. Opinions on how different
types of roads influence development have changed with time as more experience has been
acquired.

Theory
Development theory is generally interpreted to be theory about societies’ change in the Third
World. Development theory is systematic conceptualization of the conditions which
determine the change of the societies.

Strategy
Based on a development theory it is possible to formulate a development strategy. A
development strategy is a set of prescriptions for how to initiate and implement a
development process.

Concept
A strategy must contain ideas about the direction of social change, i.e. about the goals which
the strategy is intended to promote. Ideas about such goals is what constitutes the
contents of the development concept.

For analytical purposes it is convenient to distinguish between development theory,

development strategy and development concept. In reality there is often a close
interrelationship between them. It is important to emphasize that different development
theories are based on different development concepts. Common to all is that development
is not a question of reaching one precisely defined state or stage.
GNP
The concept of ‘development’ has come to denote economic growth and material wealth.
In day-to-day jargon development is associated with industrialization and signifies the
process of change as well as a state of affairs. Translated into a simple measure ‘development’
is used almost synonymously with a high Gross National Product (GNP). International
development organizations, the UN, OECD, the World Bank, etc., divide the world’s
economies according to the GNP measured per head, i.e. GNP per capita.

Low-income countries
Developing countries are summarily divided into: low-income economies, with 1992
GNP per person of US$675 or less; and middle-income economies, with 1992 GNP per
person of $676–8355. A few developing countries belong in the group of high-income
economies with GNP per capita of more than $8355. Table 1.1 presents summary data on
GNP and population growth.

Economic growth
From Table 1.1 it appears that the poorest countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin
America have a negative economic growth but a high population growth. The fact that a
number of countries in East Asia, the so-called Newly Industrialized Countries (NIC),
have been able to break away from the gloomy pattern by increasing their export earnings
does not change the overall trend of a widening gap between rich and most poor
countries.

Income gaps
The income gap between rich and poor countries is matched by big income gaps between
social classes or between regions within many countries. The large income gap within
individual countries is one of the characteristic features of under-development. For the same
reason statistical averages of GNP per capita are problematic and often misleading.
Further, the GNP tells us nothing about the benefit to the people of the economic
activities contained in the measure.
Alternative measures
Critique of the crude economic development measure contained in the GNP has led to the
development of alternative measures. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP),
a central body for the financing and co-ordination of technical assistance to developing
countries, has tried to construct a composite index of human development that captures the
three essential components of human life—longevity, knowledge and basic income for a
decent living standard. The index is called the Human Development Index (HDI). HDI is a
weighted measure of life expectancy, literacy and income expressed in purchasing-power-
adjusted international dollars.

There is no automatic link between GNP and human development. Countries at similar levels
of GNP per capita may have vastly different human development indicators, depending on
the use they have made of their national wealth (Table 1.2).

Theory
There is no well-established theory on the relationship between highways and development.
It is generally accepted, however, that a certain minimum number of highways and other
transport facilities is essential to allow and encourage economic and social development.
Economic development is conditioned by a certain level of transport infrastructure. On the
other hand, it requires a certain degree of organization, know-how and economic
development for a society to construct and maintain a transport infrastructure of a given level.
Debate
During the last three decades development planners have discussed how much emphasis
should be put on transport investments compared to investments in other sectors. The
professional debate has been heated between those who have seen transport as a leading
sector capable of inducing economic development, and those who have seen transport
investments as needing to respond only to actual traffic demands.
Trunk roads
Some important aspects have been generally agreed upon. In areas where there is already
access for motor vehicles, road investments can generally not be expected to generate
economic activity. Investments in improving major highways in developing countries will lead
to reduced vehicle operating costs and travel time, but they will seldom induce economic
development.

An exception is cases where an isolated region is connected to the rest of the country by a new
trunk road. This will allow that region to be integrated in the economic and social life of the
country by exchange of goods, information, and people.

Rural access roads

Investments in rural access roads that are opening isolated areas or reducing transport costs
dramatically will often have a good chance of generating social and economic development,
provided there is a development potential in the areas affected. The impact of rural access
road investments will be discussed below.
Rural access roads are normally narrow earth and gravel roads of simple engineering
standard. They form the last link in the road network connecting the rural areas to the primary
roads, and they carry relatively little traffic.

Impact categories
Improvement of existing access roads or construction of new ones may affect the area of
influence in many ways. Empirical evidence from a number of impact studies indicates the
following impact categories:
• employment generation during the construction phase, especially where labor intensive
methods are applied; e.g. from Kenya there have been reported 2000–3000 man-days
per km road constructed;
• improved access for rural dwellers to employment opportunities and health centers,
hospitals, district offices, schools, etc. in nearby towns;
• increased social cohesiveness and national integration;
• improved supply and lower prices of imported consumer goods;
• agricultural development indicated by higher yields, changing land use, increasing use of
modern farm inputs, and growing production for the market.

Negative impact
On the negative side it can be noted that improved road access to rural areas may lead to
dissolution of local cultural values, ousting of local cottage industry by import of cheap
manufactured goods, and accelerated deforestation and soil erosion caused by intensified
agricultural production.

Agricultural development
Agricultural development is often the main objective of rural access road investments. The
likely mechanisms of change in agriculture caused by improved road access can broadly be
described as follows. Reduced transport costs will bring about higher prices of agricultural
produce at the farm gate and lower costs of farm input. The farmers will often—but
certainly not always—respond to that by producing more for the market. Moreover,
improved access means that information on prices, market opportunities, new crops and
farming technologies are passed on more readily.

Development conditions
It appears from various impact studies that the actual net value added in agriculture is
often significantly less than what had been anticipated in the planning phase. To what
extent and at which speed the anticipated agricultural development will materialize
depends on the following factors:
• The development potential of the area given by natural conditions.
• The level of access constraint before road construction, and thus the magnitude of
transport costs savings. Transport cost savings are to be significant (e.g. shift of
transport mode) if agricultural production should be affected.
• The transport costs’ relative proportion of the total price of agricultural produce.
Transport cost savings will have a larger impact on ‘heavy’ produce with low price
per ton and highly perishable produce.
• The degree to which transport cost savings are passed on to the farmers through
lower transport rates. This depends on the competition among transporters and
middlemen.
• The awareness and attitudes of the farmers to innovations and to changing
conditions of production.
• Bottlenecks other than access, which are hampering agricultural development, e.g.
lack of market, credit, extension service, farm input, etc.
According to the impact studies it is common that a combination of the above factors are
curtailing the anticipated agricultural development.

Passenger traffic
A number of impact studies report that the increase in passenger trips on the improved
roads often exceed expectations significantly. This social benefit, however, is hard to
quantify in monetary terms.

Altogether the demand for passenger transport seems to have a higher price elasticity
than the demand for goods transport, price elasticity is the degree of sensitivity of
transport demand to a change in transport price.

Road network
The road network of developing countries is more sparse, both measured per square km
and per inhabitant, than that of developed countries. Table 1.3 gives the densities of the
road networks of some selected countries.

In many Third World countries the most important inter-urban trunk roads linking the
provincial capitals are in place, while the network of secondary and access roads in rural
areas is far from fully developed.
Table 1.3 Road densities for selected countries 1988 (ref. 1).

Road condition
Often the roads already in place are in a poor state of repair due to inadequate
maintenance. For example, a recent study of the road network of Tanzania, cf. ref. (3),
estimated that more than 60% of the trunk road network is in an unsatisfactorily poor
state of repair. In addition, the study points out that the condition of most rural access
roads is very poor and transport to villages is both difficult and costly. A large number of
rural access roads are not even passable by motor vehicles during the dry season.
The current extent and condition of the road network in developing countries is a result
of the previous historical development and the present economic situation of these
countries.

Colonial period
In most Third World countries the backbone of the existing transport infrastructure in
terms of harbors, major railway lines and trunk roads was established during the
colonial period. The purpose of this infrastructure was to evacuate raw materials from
mining areas, plantations and agricultural estates to the coast for shipment to Europe.
Thus, most of the new states, notably in Africa, at independence inherited a
disintegrated transport network with roads and railways pointing like fingers from the
harbors to the interior of the country. The network was inadequate for development of
an independent economy integrating all regions of the country.

Post independence
After independence significant investments were made by the respective governments
and international aid and financing agencies in rehabilitating existing and constructing
new trunk roads. The focus on trunk roads was related to the prevailing development
strategy of that period, the single-factor strategy or modernization strategy, which aimed
at rapid growth through industrial development.

Trunk roads
By way of example the International Development Association (IDA) during the 1960s
spent 30% of its total investments in developing countries on transport infrastructure,
notably trunk roads. To cite another example, the length of the networks of paved roads
in Kenya was expanded from about 1000km in 1960 to about 3000 km in 1970.

Rural access roads

During the 1970s the focus of the development policies was gradually turned towards
basic human needs and the agricultural sector. As a consequence of the basic human needs
and the self-reliance strategies, a larger proportion of the road investments was
directed towards rural access roads. The aim was to stimulate agricultural production and
improve the conditions of rural life.

During the 1970s and 1980s many African countries initiated large-scale rural access
road programs in order to improve the mobility of the rural population and stimulate
the farmers’ integration in the market economy. The self-reliance strategy was now
supplemented by the economic liberalization strategy.

Maintenance
Aid and financing agencies funding road construction often left it to the recipient
countries to maintain the roads. Due to inadequate local institutions and procedures and
lack of government funds road maintenance was—and often still is—inadequate.
It has been estimated that the current maintenance budget for trunk roads in Tanzania
makes up only 35% of what is required to keep the roads in a satisfactory condition.
Secondary and access roads in rural areas are receiving virtually no maintenance funds.
Over the last two decades, however, there has been an increasing awareness of the
necessity of adequate road maintenance. Although this awareness has not been fully
reflected in actual investment strategies, some improvements have taken place. Road
construction and rehabilitation projects now often include a maintenance component.
Moreover, purely maintenance-oriented road programs have been initiated in a
number of countries.

Sustainability
Sustainability has become a key word of development organizations during the 1980s and
structural adjustment programs are also influencing the public investment and recurrent
budgets. Attention is given to the preservation and continued upkeep of existing facilities
rather than the provision of new ones. According to this strategy only roads and other
infrastructural facilities that are deemed politically, economically and institutionally
sustainable in a long-term perspective will be taken care of. Improving road maintenance
includes providing sufficient recurrent funds, instituting suitable techniques and
establishing sustainable local institutions. This means that the planning and
implementation of road projects in the 1990s will require assistance from a wider range of
professions than hitherto.