Question - Transport Canberra and City Services Directorate

Does the government track the backlog of roads that need to be surfaced (i.e. a road that was supposed to be resurfaced but has not yet been resurfaced); if so, what is the current backlog of roads that need to be resurfaced and has that backlog grown larger or smaller in the past four years.

Roads ACT (with the assistance of specialised consultants) collects and analyses road condition data of the Territorial and Municipal Road network annually. This analysis is used to prepare Roads ACT’s Annual Road Resurfacing program, which results in an ‘optimised’ program each year, rather than carrying over a work queue or backlog.

The sustainability of ACT’s road pavement program is annually reported through strategic and accountability indicators. 

Roads ACT strategic and accountability indicators include:
 

• 2.1a - Annual percentage of territorial roads resurfaced (current target is 7%)  
• 2.1b - Annual percentage of municipal roads resurfaced (current target is 4%)
• 2.1d - Annual resurfacing coverage across the sealed road network (current target is 1,260,000 m2) 

In 2023-24, Roads ACT also has a new strategic indicator (2.2) focused on the condition of Territorial roads. The target is to achieve a Pavement Condition Index (PCI) of less than 2.5, which represents an overall condition score of our arterial and major collector roads as ‘fair or better’. 

The table below represents the assessed PCI average condition of the ACT’s network over the last 4 years. With the increase in road resurfacing activity in FY23/24, the next assessment of PCI (to be done later in 2024) is expected to result in a PCI decrease (improvement in average road condition) from 2023.

Note: 2020 comparable data is not available so three years of data has been provided.