{"id":192578,"date":"2017-10-11T22:49:56","date_gmt":"2017-10-11T12:49:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=192578"},"modified":"2020-08-12T15:39:36","modified_gmt":"2020-08-12T05:39:36","slug":"1000km-of-regions-roads-now-mapped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2017\/10\/11\/1000km-of-regions-roads-now-mapped\/","title":{"rendered":"1000km Of Region’s Roads Now Mapped"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Council’s new roof-mounted road condition assessment system is now almost a third the way through mapping the condition of the region’s roads to help speed up road repairs (Photo: RACAS)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Roads portfolio chair
Cr Gavin Jones<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

October 11, 2017<\/strong><\/p>\n

The days of whingeing about how bad your road is to get the Council to pay some attention to it are rapidly drawing to a close, according to Cr Gavin Jones.<\/p>\n

Almost a third of the region’s 3500km road network has now been mapped by the South Burnett Regional Council’s new automated road asset condition assessment system (RACAS).<\/p>\n

The Council put the RACAS system to work in August, and so far it has mapped the condition of 1000km of roads; located every pothole, corrugation or other defect on them; and mapped their precise geographic coordinates.<\/p>\n

Cr Jones told Wednesday’s Council meeting the new system’s thorough and impartial analysis of the real state of the region’s roads meant the entire road network could be mapped by early next year.<\/p>\n

It also meant the days of whoever whinged the loudest about how bad their road was were drawing to a close.<\/p>\n

“Whingers in future will be ignored,” Cr Jones told the meeting.<\/p>\n

“RACAS identifies high priority defects and these will be attended to first.”<\/p>\n

Cr Jones said what the mapping exercise was finding was that in many cases, otherwise good roads were being turned into annoyances by damaged patches.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The majority of a road might be fine, but damaged patches were continually annoying drivers who had to use the road. This created the perception the road’s overall condition was worse than it really was.<\/p>\n

However, because RACAS was impartial and precise, these damaged patches could be identified and remedied.<\/p>\n

This restored the entire road to a good average condition without the need for a total rework, allowing road crews to get through more repairs in less time.<\/p>\n

“The squeaky wheel is being replaced by science, and I’m confident we’ll see a massive improvement to our region’s roads in the next 18 to 24 months,” Cr Jones said.<\/p>\n

“I want to stress that I still encourage the public to ring and tell us about bad patches on their road.<\/p>\n

“But say bad patches, don’t say the whole road is bad because in most cases it’s not.”<\/p>\n

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Council road crews are undertaking – or will soon start – the following major roadworks projects:<\/strong><\/p>\n