Road maintenance management in Kano State: case study at Kano Metropolitan

Abstract

In Nigeria Road transport system is the most important means of transportation as in many developing countries. Roads are the major connecting links of states, towns, cities and villages. Nigeria has the largest road network in West Africa and second largest road network south of the Sahara with an estimated road length of 193200 kilometres. The roads have to be maintained so as to prolong its life. Without maintenance, roads can quickly fall into disrepair leading to increased costs for road users in vehicle operation, time, reliability and safety. The aim of this study is to examine the road maintenance management of Kano metropolitan roads and the possible ways of improving it. The objectives of the study are to examine the types of road defect on Kano metropolitan roads, the factors that contribute to the road defects, the road user’s satisfaction on the maintenance works carried out by KARMA and to analyse the problems on road defect reporting system in KARMA. The study is conducted through questionnaires, interviews and maintenance report at the maintenance office. A total of 25 questionnaires for KARMA, KNUPDA and ministry of works personals and 53 set for the road user’s were analysed using SPSS and Average Index. From the study, the types of road defect on Kano metropolitan roads are potholes, patching and utility cut patching/Reinstatement of utility openings (electricity, water, telecommunication etc.) and edge cracks. The factors that contribute to the road defects are structural failure due to poor design and construction, inadequate maintenance policy and standards and the traffic load and volume. Overall, the road user’s satisfaction on the maintenance works carried out by KARMA are ‘Not satisfied. The problems on road defect reporting system and documentation in KARMA is unsatisfactory. There are no proper way of addressing complaint to the agency, the complaints are only received through verbal or written which when received had to insert into computer manually. Though obviously there is no provision of computer for this task, the latter are kept in a file and sometimes may even be lost.