Transferring Road Maintenance to the Private Sector: The Colombian Experience.
Reviews how the client organisations, contractors and administrators have developed and how management procedures evolved
Abstract
Many countries are making increasing use of the private sector for road maintenance activities. Since the mid 1980s, the South American country of Colombia has gradually increased its use of private contractors for road maintenance on the national road network. A specific emphasis of the Colombian initiatave has been to develop local commumty based contractors and it is considered that this model provides a useful example for other countries keen to develop such an approach. In addition, more recently, Colombia has changed its approach to management of maintenance, by the introduction of performance based contracts and also by developing local ‘road administrators’ who manage the contractors as well as fulfilling other roles.
The report reviews how both the client organisations and the contractors and administrators have developed and how the management procedures have evolved to administer road maintenance. Conclusions highlighting the key issues which appear to have affected the success of developing the private sector for road maintenance are presented at the end of the report.
Citation
C C Parkman (1999) Transferring Road Maintenance to the Private Sector: The Colombian Experience.Transport Research Laboratory (TRL)
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