Australian Pavement Research The Last 20 Years (Mar 1996)

The road transport system is a valuable and essential part of Australia’s infrastructure in which we all have an enormous stake. However, infrastructure is a long- term investment in the future and consequently receives little attention from the public unless something goes wrong or individually, we are affected by delays or accidents or some other disruption that affects our personal lives. We work in the industry; we depend upon it for our livelihoods but we also understand its importance and the significance of poor investment or poor engineering decisions and what it costs. People outside our industry do not necessarily share that concern because it seldom affects them specifically. But take away the roads, the bridges and other vehicle accessways and imagine the disruption and the attention they would get. However, as responsible people in an important industry we must continually strive to be better at what we do. Keep abreast of modern technology and construction methods but, importantly, look towards the economic and social impact that roads have on the environment in which we live.