The quality of roads is one of the long—standing Russian problems. It is not enough to build a highway well, it must be monitored and maintained in working order. Yevgeny MAKAROV, head of the Department for monitoring the quality of road works of the Organizational Directorate of the CC FAA "ROSDORNII", told in an interview with Stroygazeta about how the construction of Russian highways is controlled and how the condition of road coverings on existing roads is monitored.
SG: Any manufactured products must pass quality control. How does this happen with highways?
Evgeny Makarov:Recently, during the preparation of the quality monitoring concept for the national project "Safe High-quality Highways" (BCAD), my colleagues and I formulated the concept of road quality. This is a set of geometric parameters and transport and operational characteristics, the level of which ensures comfortable and safe movement of road users. And the quality of road works is technological operations, design solutions, materials and products that provide the same regulatory characteristics and parameters. Road quality control begins with the project. The project documentation goes through several stages. The first is an internal audit conducted by the chief engineer of the project (ISU), who is, in fact, legally responsible for these products. In addition, there is such a thing as norm control. This is a kind of OTC in the project organization itself — here the documentation is checked for compliance with standards and GOST standards.
SG: Well, let's assume that the project has passed all the stages of verification and the road is built in accordance with the regulations. Why is it necessary to monitor her condition?
E.M.: A road is an object whose condition is influenced by many factors: climatic, geological, hydrological, operational and others. And even if the road is built qualitatively according to an excellent project, there are a number of characteristics that are not taken into account in the project. Let's say construction starts next to the road, production facilities appear, because of this, traffic intensity may increase. This inevitably leads to a change in the condition of the roadway. Monitoring is necessary in order to to track the approach to the limit values for the main operational indicators — evenness, strength, grip and track.
SG: How is the condition of the roadway monitored?
E.M.: Diagnostics of a highway, assessment of its transport and operational indicators has a given regularity and is usually carried out with the help of specialized road laboratories with a certain set of diagnostic equipment.
SG: Ideally, the control and monitoring system should "cover" the entire road network, but this is hardly possible. What is the situation in reality?
E.M.: If we talk about monitoring the quality of road works, which is carried out by the FAA "ROSDORNII" within the framework of the national project "Safe and high-quality roads", then this is selective quality monitoring. The sites for conducting a selective assessment of the technical condition are determined based on the data of the appendix to the regional projects "Road Network" and data on repair work on road sections requested from the subjects of the Russian Federation. Unfortunately, the diagnosis of highways is not carried out everywhere. This is an expensive event, requiring special equipment and qualified personnel.
SG: What are the qualification requirements for specialists for these purposes? Where are they trained?
E.M.: The selection of specialists is not an easy task, and this is due to the fact that an employee performing quality control or construction control must have a certain set of competencies. This requires experience that is not typical of vertical career growth in a standard situation. It is good if a person has the experience of a surveyor or work experience in a road laboratory, is familiar with the design, as well as with the basics of assessing the transport and operational indicators of highways - diagnostics. And with all this, he is still well-versed in the industry regulatory framework, familiar with the necessary legislation, one way or another related to the execution and acceptance of work. A very important feature of the organization of quality control: the service specialist should not just identify violations, but explain to the contractor how to do it correctly. In the framework of the national project, such work is becoming particularly relevant, in my opinion. A training program for specialists in quality control, and if necessary, such a program will be available to all specialists who wish to improve their qualifications.
SG: What new methods and technologies are used for quality control?
E.M.:Now a lot of new foreign technologies are coming to the road industry. This requires the use of modern laboratory and portable equipment that allows you to quickly and at the proper level to determine the necessary parameters. Recently, a lot of different domestic and foreign devices have appeared that make it possible to significantly simplify the decision-making mechanism by reducing the time required for testing, but we must bear in mind the legitimacy of their use, and specialists of the construction control or quality control service should be well versed in this issue.
For reference:
Russian Road Research Institute (FAA "ROSDORNII") — a leading organization for the development and scientific support of state federal and regional programs aimed at innovative development and improvement of the condition of highways, implementation of fundamental, exploratory and applied R&D, development of industry regulatory and technical documents, design and diagnostics of roads and artificial structures, development of information technologies in the road sector, introduction of advanced technologies, equipment and materials.