Road Inventory

Development

Road inventory reports have for decades been considered an essential part of the management, planning, and funding cycles of local, state, and federal transportation authorities and administrators. The hundreds of billions of dollars budgeted for and spent from the federal level on down for roadway design, construction, and maintenance, along with such integral or ancillary features as sightline improvements, bridges, culverts, tunnels, signage and traffic signals, electronic monitoring systems, ecological and civil remediation, and other matters have been a powerful incentive for the development of better road inventory capabilities.

This funding availability and its often strict compliance rules and guidelines have provided longstanding reasons for localities and states to progressively—and competitively—develop their ability to demonstrate road-improvement need, provide evidence of intelligent oversight, and show competence in project management.

Mileage Reports

Most state transportation authorities compile, produce, analyze, and file annual reports, including road mileage data within their jurisdictions. The essential data will often be footnoted or electronically layered with reference to such criteria as segment mileage and name, jurisdiction name, year of initial construction, roadway dimensions, material makeup of pavement, shoulder width and makeup, speed limits, general condition, status of maintenance activity or scheduled work, type and weight of conveyance restrictions, erosion or related risks, and special notes. Increasingly, the road inventory documentation may be linked to further documents that provide information on how certain road segments are part of proposed or budgeted projects within a five-year horizon.

Responsibility within a given jurisdiction may extend well beyond the immediately obvious. In South Dakota, for example, the transportation department (SDDOT) maintains an annually updated road inventory of all the nonstate public roads. The motivation behind this effort is revealing. The SDDOT states

Considerable effort and state resources are expended in what is in this case a collaborative effort between SDDOT, the Northeast Council of Governments, South Eastern Council of Governments, First District Association of Local Governments, Planning and Development District III, and officials and employees who staff a full range of other federal, state, county, township, and city agencies and panels that each exercise some measure of jurisdiction over public roads in South Dakota. Each of these entities, by virtue of the interconnectedness of the roadway system and its support structures, has some insight into and data-gathering ability for those public roads that the state itself does not control or maintain—but that often prove to be vital links in the planning and maintenance of safety, security, and adequate capacity over the entire road network.

...