70% of the road network is safe, but only 43% of the roads are prepared for adaptation to connected and autonomous mobility and only 14% could start the ecological transition process according to international requirements and commitments. This follows from the latest report on ‘Investment Needs in Conservation’ developed by the Spanish Road Association (AEC).
The conclusions are not optimistic and raise the investment deficit that the roads drag to 9,918 million euros, a figure much higher than that of the previous report presented in 2021 due to the fact that the current prices of raw materials have been taken into account (This increase is valued at 1,500 million euros). The largest investment falls on the roads administered by the regional and provincial governments and reaches 6,657 million euros, most of it due to the poor condition of the pavement.
This is not good news for drivers as they drive on roads that are getting worse and worse and that leads to a 10% increase in fuel consumption.
This association began carrying out Visual Inspection Campaigns in 1985, and has been collecting data ever since. In this link I tell you the conclusions of the report presented in 2020.
The network has 101,700 km
The field work of this latest study was carried out last summer and collects data from 2020 and 2021, years fully affected by the pandemic. Despite the fact that 132 million long-distance trips were stopped in 2020, which has meant a lesser impact especially on pavements, the overall rating of the state of Spanish roads is close to ‘very poor’.
Of the 101,700 kilometers represented in the sample audited by the AEC (26,400 km of the State network and 75,300 of the regional and autonomous network), a total of 13,000 km show serious deterioration in more than 50% of the pavement surface. Ruts, cracks in ruts, thick cracks, disintegration, deformation and erratic cracks are the most frequent damages. From AEC they highlight the improvement of the network in the Basque Country in which all the indicators are positive to be able to make the leap towards digitalization and ecological transformation. As they explain from the association, one of the reasons for this improvement could be in the application of the pay-per-use rate from January 9, 2018 and that allows improving the investment.
Let’s see the status of the different elements of the track analyzed:
Pavement, close to ‘very poor’
The deterioration of pavements continues to increase compared to previous years, but it does so to a lesser extent due to the Covid effect. The firms of the state network lower their note by 5% when before they were damaged at a rate of 7%. The autonomous highways come out worst but they remain without significant variations.
On a scale of 0 to 400, the weighted average of the state of the pavements is 128. The pavement accumulates 95% of the total investment (9,456 million euros would be necessary in replacement and reinforcement).
360,000 signs must be renewed
On a scale of 0 to 10, vertical signage does not reach the approved level and remains at 4.7 (slightly higher than the 4.5 it obtained in 2019). According to the report, 360,000 code signs must be renewed (the directional panels are not analyzed) and 65% have expired reflective signs (their visibility at night is not guaranteed).
Improves the condition of road markings
In the horizontal signage section, an improvement stands out from the 5.4 points of 2019 to the 6.4 points of the global average. We recall that in the 2019 audit a significant deterioration of the travel brands was found.
The report concludes that it would be necessary to repaint the road markings of 20,000 kilometers of roads at a cost of 43 million euros.
Metal barriers keep the suspense
Between 35 and 45% of the accident rate is affected by the existence of metal barriers since it is caused by road exits. There has been a stagnation in this element and the average rating goes from 4.4 in 2019 to 4.5 in 2021.
The AEC estimates a need for an investment of 320 million euros to improve the state of the existing metal barriers.
The buoyage near the notable
It is the element that presents the best ‘health’ status and in this section we refer to corner markers, road studs, directional panels and beacons. The rating of the national average goes from 6.4 to 6.8 out of a total of 10.
The Autonomous Communities whose network needs the most investment are Castilla y León (1,738 million euros), Castilla La Mancha (1,297) and Andalucía (1,276).
From the Spanish Road Association they value the increase that the Ministry of Transport has allocated in 2022 to the conservation of the infrastructure, reaching 1,371 million euros (compared to 1,240 in 2021) but, according to their analyses, a annual investment of between 1,600 and 1,800 million euros for ten years so that the road network would return to good health.
Its president, Juan Francisco Lazcano, also regrets that his PERTE proposal ‘Safe, green and connected roads’ has not been taken into account by the Government at the moment, although “we continue to fight to achieve it because only with investment in roads can we achieve the objectives proposed by the Government in relation to ecological and connected mobility”.
In this link I tell you in detail how the roads will be intelligent and will integrate autonomous cars. And in this other report I analyze how each element of the road influences road safety.
