| dc.description.abstract | Uganda’s transport system includes road, rail, water and air transport. Road transport is the most dominant mode carrying 96.5 % and 95 % of freight cargo and passenger traffic respectively and provides the only means of access for the rural population. As of 2019, the Country has a total road network of 159,364 km which comprise of 20,854 km of National Roads; 38,603 km of District Roads; 19,959km of Urban Roads and 79,947 km of Community Access Roads. Overall, only 6,107km (3.83%) is paved and for district roads only 106.5 km (0.28%) is paved while for urban roads, 1229.7 km (6.16%) is paved (MoWT, 2021). UNRA is appropriated a budget for its recurrent and development activities from Government of
Uganda (GoU) with the support of the Development Partners under Vote 113. In addition, UNRA receives funds from the Uganda Road Fund specifically for the maintenance and operation of the National Road Network. For the FY19/20, a total of 1,744.55 Bn was approved for the Development GoU budget, out of which UGX 1,727.45 Bn (99.02%) was released. Out of the cumulative release of UGX 1,727.45 Bn, UNRA spent UGX 1,727.23 Bn by end of the FY representing 99.99% of the releases spent in addition to the external finances provided. The measurement of the road condition is by the International Roughness Index (IRI). Between FY2015/16 and 2016/17, the condition of the paved road network in the fair to good category increased from 78.5% to 80%, while that of the unpaved road network dropped from 71% to 70%. This is against the NDP II target of 79% for paved roads and 66% for unpaved roads (MoWT, 2020). Overloading on the national road network continues, thereby resulting in deterioration of the network and the need for additional finances to rehabilitate damaged roads. For the FY 2017/18, only UGX 417 billion (13.9%) out of the UGX 3 trillion road sector budget was allocated for road maintenance. This is way below the optimum required UGX 800 – 1,000
billion required annually to achieve minimum standards of maintenance. In essence, Uganda is spending just about 0.55% of its GDP on road maintenance against a minimum recommended 0.85% to just about arrest spiralling build-up of backlog (URF, 2017). However, if road deterioration is detected early, cheaper timely maintenance interventions can be implemented which will not only prolong the pavement life but also reduce on the overall road maintenance budget. This research was carried out to investigate the effect of Axle Loading on Initiation of Reflection Cracking on Bituminous Pavements in Uganda. Traffic counts were carried out manually to determine the traffic volume that uses the road from which the average daily heavy traffic was extracted. The road roughness condition of the road was estimated using the MoWT field check list in which the roads were rated. It was determined that, for Nakawa Ntinda road, with a surfacing of 150 mm and average daily heavy traffic of 1,006 vehicles per day, Reflection cracking would start 5 years, 1 month and 20 days after it is opened to traffic. For Acacia Avenue road, with a surfacing of 50 mm and an average daily heavy traffic of 493 vehicles per day, Reflection cracking would start 1 years, 2 months and 15 days after it is opened to traffic. For Lukuli road, with a surfacing of 50 mm and an average daily heavy traffic of 550 vehicles per day, Reflection cracking would start 1 years, 1 month and 6 days after it is opened to traffic. However, if the roads were constructed with thicker surfacing the time to
initiation of reflection cracking would be increased. | en_US |
