Development of road maintenance prioritization program for small region. Case study in District of Malang, East Java, Indonesia

The problems of road maintenance in many districts in Indonesia are not only the inadequacy of budget. It is also related to non-technical such as political and cultural aspects that play important roles in decision making. Therefore, when preparing a road maintenance program, the authority should consider these aspects in order for the program to be successful. The objective of the paper is to present a recommended procedure to determine the prioritization method for road maintenance in the developing countries where political and social aspects still dominate in the decision process of road maintenance program A road condition survey was conducted on 16 road segments under District of Malang jurisdiction. Survey and analysis procedures follow the ASTM D6433 and the Indonesian Department of Public Works (IDPW) method. To determine the prioritization program, the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was applied using the following factors: technical, land-use, political, road network integration, and emergency. A total of 45 questionnaires were distributed to stakeholders. The result shows that out of 16 roads surveyed, according to ASTM D6433 procedures, 4 segments were in excellent conditions, while the rests were rated as follows: good (5 segments), fair (5 segments), and very poor (2 segments). According to IDPW procedures, 7 road segments require routine maintenance, 7 segments for periodic maintenance, and 2 segments for rehabilitation. From the AHP analysis it was found that the most dominant factor to consider when prioritizing road maintenance and rehabilitation was emergency (0.294), followed by political (0.2812), technical (0.2318), land-use (0.09), and integration with other road networks (0.0935). However, the study also found that there is no much different recommendation result between those based solely on pavement condition and those based on other aspects. Future research is needed particularly by increasing the number of road segments or number of agencies to validate the findings.