At the beginning of July, Mr. Pierre Charon, a member of the Senate, asked the Minister of Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion “what [were] his intentions for the implementation of a real national road policy.” (1)
This question arises following the publication of the report “The Maintenance of National and Departmental Roads” commissioned by the Court of Auditors and published in March 2022.
In this report, “the Court examined the management of national roads and the road policy implemented by the State, while nine regional chambers of accounts monitored the action deployed in this area within a sample of 16 departments and some intercommunalities” (2)
One of the first findings highlighted by this document is “the absence of a real maintenance policy.” That is, there is no defined strategy to maintain the road heritage in condition. Thus, it recommends providing the means for a national road policy.
Indeed, for sustainable infrastructure management, the second challenge for the manager is to define and implement real strategies.
For more efficient, virtuous, and sustainable management of infrastructures, reforms and reorganizations are necessary:
• A multi-annual approach is essential;
• Preventive maintenance would, in the long term, lead to significant savings by avoiding more costly repairs in the future.
The report also discusses that “this more rational management, […] jointly with an improvement in the monitoring and forecasting of infrastructures […] as well as an adaptation of service levels to the reality of needs, would allow significant [financial and environmental] savings.”
Virtuous Infrastructure Management Strategy
Sources :
(1) https://www.senat.fr/questions/base/2022/qSEQ220700514.html
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