FINNISH ROAD ADMINISTRATION RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT 2001
The Finnish Road Administration's research and development program 2001 was based on the strategy adopted for the years 2000-2003. It was the first program to be implemented after the National Road Administration was divided into a road administration and a road enterprise.
To support transport system overall goals and the vision of the Road Administration, the program focused on the following themes: - impact management - road transport system development - information management - procurement development.
The Road Administration has also sought to implement projects in the road management sectors outside these themes, to ensure a balanced overall development.
R&D external costs, mainly consultants' fees, are linked to road management funding. The strategy objective was to use 1.5 % of the Road Administration budget for this. The 2001 Central Administration r&d budget was 42 million FIM (approx. 7.1 Meuro). The central r&d program was, on the whole, implemented as planned, but some 5% of the financing, i.e. some 2 MFIM, was not utilised. The Regional Road Administrations also include small scale research and development in their activity, for about 6.3 MFIM (approx. 1.1 Meuro) in fees and other costs.
The main differences from the program were in the sectors of data management and procurement development, which stayed under budget, and other development, which exceeded its budget. There were some shifts between themes, but in general, a small part of each theme was not implemented.
This was due to programming and resource availability problems. Calendar year programming has led to projects starting so late in the year that part of them cannot be implemented as expected. There has also been a lack of experienced researchers and project partners. Collaborative efforts are often delayed and stakeholder financing can be rather complicated. Reduced road funding also reduces the number of new projects, with a corresponding impact on design and construction development.
In 2001, r&d activity was evaluated by an independent auditor, supported by interviews of stakeholders and administration representatives and seminars. The evaluation shows an overall positive impact of Road Administration r&d: results are produced and generally have significant and positive impacts. But there is a need to improve implementation and utilisation of the results.
