Road Challenges

7. ROADS-CHALLENGES AND REQUIREMENTS

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

Malaysia's environmental policy objectives intend to `.... balance the goals for socio-economic development and the need to bring the benefits of development to a wide spectrum of population against the maintenance of sound environmental conditions.' The First Statement in Malaysia's Vision 2020 states that in the pursuit of economic development, Malaysia will also `ensure that her invaluable natural resources are not wasted. The land must remain productive and fertile, the atmosphere clear and clean, the water unpolluted, the forest resources capable of regeneration'. In providing and efficient infrastructural road network to sustain and cope with the socio-economic development policy of the country, and still maintaining the need for the protection of the environment, it is indeed a challenge to road designers to ensure that all road projects implemented by the Government have been evaluated of their effects on the environmental and the incorporation of appropriate counter measures to minimised their impacts.

ROAD SAFETY

In recent years, the need for providing a safe and efficient road system has been a cause of concern to the Malaysian government. The road accident statistics indicate a marked increase in fatalities on Malaysian roads. In 1990, a special Cabinet Committee headed by the Prime Minister himself was formed to spearhead the task of reducing road accidents.

The Committee has set a goal to reduce accidents by 30% by the year 2000, taking the 1989 data as the base. An intergrated Master Plan was then formulated with a budget of RM20 million allocated for research and countermeasures. Road authorities are taking comprehensive and systematic approaches to achieve the said goals through: Accident Prevention Measures

To incorporate Road Safety Auditing for all new and existing road in the country during planning, design, construction and operating stages.

Accident Reduction Measures

Improvement of hazardous locations along the existing roads, research and study on hazardous location, road surface, geometric standard and traffic control devices are currently being carried out.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

In striving towards optimising the resources available in the country for the road building industry, the need for an economic and efficient utilisation of these resources is neccessary.
Research on in the usage of new materials and methods of construction to overcome the specific needs and requirements in the various road engineering fields have been carried out.

In the slope rehabilisation and protection works carried out on the slopes of roads traversing the mountainous regions of the country, bio-engineering techniques incorporating the concept of using both structures and vegetation in the protection and stabilisation of cut and fill slopes.

Extensive research has been carried out on the usage of Vetiver Grass in slope rehabilitation and protection applications. Six trial slope locations along the East West Highway have been identified and tried using this bio-engineering technique. From the Highway Network Development Plan Study conducted in 1991, Peninsular Malaysia shows three (3) distint links that are heavily trafficked ie. the north-south trun road on the West Coast (FR01), the north-south trunk road on the East-Coast (FR03), and the West-East link from Kuala Lumpur to Kuantan (FR02). For Sarawak, the road linking Seri Aman to Kuching was identified as the most trafficked road. For Sabah, the main routes having appreaciable volume of traffic are the Kota Kinabalu-Keningau and Lahad Datu-Tawau links.

Home ¦ Malaysia in Brief ¦ Government ¦ Road Develop[ment ¦ Road Network ¦ Road Administration ¦ Road Traffic ¦ Road Challenges ¦ Privatisation Policy ¦ Direction Policy ¦

Cawangan Jalan,Ibu Pejabat JKR
Jalan Sultan Salahuddin 50582 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia