Road Engineering Guideline Reform Lags
The Road Administration is still relying on road engineering guidelines developed in 1983, it has emerged, although even Russia switched away from the old Soviet standards more than 10 years ago.
Although it is one of the few areas to escape reform in the last 20 years, the Road Administration says it is not necessarily a reason why roads are perceived as quickly deteriorating.
A study commissioned by the Road Administration from a company, Ramboll, recently noted a conflict - Estonian roads allow trucks with a laden mass of 44 tons while the 1983 standards take into consideration a maximum 32 tons and 40 tons for road trains.
Besides gross laden weight, tires and tire pressure have also changed in the last 30 years, resulting in a higher load on roads.
Ramboll said in the study that it was hard to determine to what extent this was causing deterioration, but one representative from the company ventured that the reasons the Soviet standards were used were financial ones.
"Every step that makes a pavement stronger actually means that we can build markedly fewer highway kilometers, which means less ribbon-cutting for officials," said senior consultant for Ramboll, Ain Kendra.
The Road Administration defended the fact that the old standards are still in use, arguing that in practice Estonian roads do end up lasting the required lifespan.
The authority said the main reason the Soviet guidelines are used is that they are the world's only guidelines for engineering pavements on Estonian soil types and climate.
"The other thing is that the Road Administration has been constantly studying the causes of road deterioration through drilling and calculations," said spokesperson Allan Kasesalu. "There is no indication that the computational methods are not suitable - the cause of the investigated pavement failures has always been either inaccurate geological investigations in the design process or gross engineering or construction errors."
Along with the Soviet standards, a version of Russian road engineering software has been used. The Road Administration switched to an in-house system at the end of April. Ramboll has proposed that a Danish program could be adapted for use in Estonia.
Kristopher Rikken