First, the highway maintenance management mode
In France, except mowing, winter maintenance, sign maintenance and garbage removal, most maintenance operations are contract management. Therefore, the provider of franchise rights is generally a combination of contractors and tax administrators. The Ministry of Communications conducted an annual user survey to enable highway users to ask a series of questions outside the highway. Ask the same question every year, determine the development trend and check the quality of service. Every year, we survey 10000 users in the expressway system and 20000 users in the national highway system. The maintenance department modifies the order and budget of maintenance priority projects according to the investigation results. For local and municipal roads, users can get evaluation cards at gas stations and evaluate their advantages and disadvantages according to their own wishes.
A total of 7 186km of roads in France are owned and operated by builders or operators. Users are charged a certain fee per kilometer to compensate the investment, construction, operation and maintenance costs and obtain a certain profit. Construction operators can sell shares in the road system and allow them to hire their own personnel to carry out various road maintenance projects as needed. Construction operators are generally reliable and trustworthy. The French government holds shares in the construction operator company, and more than half of the budget is borne by taxes. This mode of cooperation has proved to be successful.
French construction operators are all involved in the design and construction of roads. This unique contractor/owner relationship encourages innovative activities and produces many patented construction methods and mixed materials.
In South Africa, the Ministry of Transport and provincial governments rely on professional consultants for road design, analysis and on-site construction management, and franchisees are becoming more and more popular to build, operate and transfer facilities. The construction and operation adopts the contract system based on highway performance guarantee, and the franchisee takes full responsibility for highway maintenance during the contract period, and the longest contract period can reach 30 years. This way can not only provide the funds needed for road construction under the tight budget, but also the government can share the profits of the concession and get the tax according to a certain return ratio. The general trend in Australia is privatization of road design, construction and maintenance. The degree of privatization varies from state to state, and national statistics show that this management method reduces maintenance costs. More than 90% of the highway maintenance business in Western Australia has passed contract management, so the number of employees has been reduced from 2,500 to 700. At first, the government was worried about the normal management ability of maintenance contracts, but in fact this management method proved to be successful.