Timalsina, Bibek (2017) An Application of Open GIS for Unsealed Gravel Road Asset Management in Toowoomba Regional Council Area. Coursework Masters thesis, University of Southern Queensland. (Unpublished)
Abstract
Geographic Information System (GIS) plays a key role in today's best management practices of infrastructure asset management including roads. In Australia, there are three levels of government and local government is the custodian of maintenance of gravel roads. Local governments are struggling to maintain gravel roads due to low budget and lack of affordable decision-making tools that help to prioritise the gravel roads which require immediate maintenance. Local governments have traditionally used proprietary GIS software and tools for various operational functions, as well as, planning and management of infrastructure assets. Due to the open data policy of Queensland government and freely available open source GIS tools, the open source GIS software and tools are also popular in municipalities and local councils. Hence, it is necessary to explore the suitability and effectiveness of open GIS tools to manage local government infrastructure assets and resources.
The aim of this project is to explore the use of open Geographic Information System (GIS) for unsealed gravel road maintenance in local government. Toowoomba Regional Council of Australia was taken as a case based on high traffic volume, high percentage of heavy vehicles, easy access to data, size of gravel road networks, and custodian of gravel road maintenance. Six objectives were formulated to achieve the main aim. In the past years, various study have been done about the application of GIS in Civil Engineering areas including to explore the relationship between road grade and accidents, analysis of river meanders, improvement on performance of pavement gravel in local government, etc. However, there has been limited previous research on the Unsealed Gravel Road maintenance using GIS. The motivation for this research is basically this is a new area to be explored and the outputs from this study will help Regional Councils in Australia to better manage their gravel road maintenance strategy using low cost affordable GIS tools.
The research framework was developed and both primary as well as secondary data were collected to create gravel road spatial database. The primary data was collected from field using handheld GNSS receiver. The secondary data (both spatial and attribute) were collected from Toowoomba Regional Council and Bureau of Metrology. Both data were integrated using Open Source QGIS software. Google map was taken as a base layer for quality check and visualisation. Six unsealed gravel roads of Toowoomba Regional Council were selected to explore the conditions based on cross-section, drainage, corrugation, embedded stone, pothole, and rutting & scouring. The gravel depth was measured on the selected roads and the location of the points were mapped using GNSS receiver. After the field examination and GIS analysis, the unconditional score (UCS) for selected gravel roads was calculated and condition of gravel road was determined as excellent, good, fair, poor and very poor. It was found that E Drews road was excellent condition, Weedon Road, Berghofer Road, and FGG Couper Road was of good condition, Deuble Road and Brimblecombe Road was found as fair condition. In addition to this, based on gravel depth from field and 2012 gravel depth data obtained from Toowoomba Regional Council, the gravel loss per year was calculated. The prediction model which was developed by Jones (1984) had been used to estimate the gravel loss per year. The data were validated with gravel loss assumed by Toowoomba Regional Council and data collected from the field. In Brimblecombe Road, there was significant difference between gravel loss obtained from site visit and predicted gravel loss and assumed gravel loss by TRC. Further, it found later that high percentage of heavy vehicles were running through Brimblecombe RD in comparison to other roads. It was found that gravel loss depends upon the traffic volume, climatic condition and gravel materials and other factors. Based on this prediction model, maintenance strategies were formulated and based on priority, maintenance map was created as very low priority, low priority, medium, priority, high priority and very high priority. The Deuble Road was under very high propriety and Weedon Road and FGG Couper Road was under low priority. Based on the condition of the roads and priority, the maintenance plans such as routine blading, reshaping, resheeting, stabilisation, drainage maintenance, dust control, isolated repair, and major works were mapped and suggested. It has been suggested that Deuble Road has very high priority for maintenance first with its following maintenance strategy and FGG Couper Road and Weedon Road has very low priority among six selected roads. For Deuble Road, routine blading, resheeting, reshaping, dust control and isolated repairs have been suggested to improve the condition of the road.
This research has contributed to the body of knowledge in the areas of Open GIS, Asset Management and Prediction Model and Maintenance plan of gravel roads. The outputs from this research will help Toowoomba Regional Council to prioritise their maintenance strategy and improve the conditions of gravel roads.
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| Item Type: | Thesis (Non-Research) (Coursework Masters) |
|---|---|
| Item Status: | Live Archive |
| Faculty/School / Institute/Centre: | Historic - Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences - School of Civil Engineering and Surveying (1 Jul 2013 - 31 Dec 2021) |
| Supervisors: | Paudyal, Dev Raj |
| Qualification: | Master of Engineering Sciences (Civil) |
| Date Deposited: | 23 Mar 2026 04:26 |
| Last Modified: | 23 Mar 2026 04:26 |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Geographic Information System (GIS); gravel roads; Australia |
| URI: | https://sear.unisq.edu.au/id/eprint/53189 |
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