Add maintenance code to projectType codelist, update code descriptions and add typeDetails field

[duncandewhurst]

CoST Ukraine uses the World Bank's classification for road project types which has the following codes (these were shared via email, I've asked for a link to where the classification is documented):

Project Type	Description
Construction	The primary focus of this project is the construction of a new road
Rehabilitation	The primary focus of this project is the rehabilitation of an existing asset
Upgrade	Comprehensive restoration of transport and operational parameters of the road taking into account the growth of traffic intensity and axial loads, increasing the strength of the road structure without changing the technical category.
Periodic Maintenance	Major repairs or rehabilitation of those parts of the highway that have deteriorated over the years. The frequency involves intervals of some years. The activities include surface dressing or resealing and re-gravelling of shoulders for paved roads and re-gravelling for unpaved roads.
Routine Maintenance	Routine maintenance is required to be carried out continually on every road, irrespective of its engineering features or volume of vehicular traffic. Routine maintenance expenses are typically treated as fixed-cost items in the maintenance budget. They include lane marking, drainage clearing, basic maintenance of culverts and bridges, grass cutting and so on.
Recurrent Maintenance	This is required at intervals during the year. The frequency of this maintenance depends on the topographic and climatic characteristics of the area and the volume of traffic on the road. It involves maintenance of pavements for paved roads, repairing of potholes and (for unpaved roads) grading.
Winter Maintenance	This includes gritting, snow clearance and related storage and possible further disposal.

Construction and Rehabilitation have equivalent codes in the project type codelist and Periodic Maintenance seems to map to 'rehabilitation' in OC4IDS. To model the other project types in OC4IDS we would need to:

• Add 'upgrade' and 'maintenance' codes to the project type codelist
• Add a typeDetails field at the project level, which publishers can use to provide a more detailed breakdown of the project type using the codes from their local classifications, e.g. subdividing maintenance into routine, recurrent or winter maintenance.

Routine, Recurrent and Winter maintenance seem to stretch the definition of an infrastructure project ("the development of a set of infrastructure assets in a specified location") however if there is a use case for CoST programmes to include such work in the same dataset as other project types, then OC4IDS should support that.

@nadinefernz, @evelyndinora, @jpmckinney - are you happy with the proposal?

Also, we should improve the descriptions in the project type codelist, as presently these just restate the title of the code. I'll open an issue.

[jpmckinney]

"upgrade" sounds a bit like 'expansion' ("taking into account the growth of traffic intensity and axial loads, increasing the strength of the road structure").

I'm not clear on the difference between routine and recurrent maintenance. Anyhow, we'll need to be careful in distinguishing 'rehabilitation' from 'maintenance'.

[duncandewhurst]

"upgrade" sounds a bit like 'expansion' ("taking into account the growth of traffic intensity and axial loads, increasing the strength of the road structure").

Yes, that was my initial thought, but there seems to be a distinction between upgrading the road "without changing the technical category" and other types of project, which by inference might change the category of the road, e.g. adding a lane. I suspect the definitions of construction and rehabilitation in the full classification might help to clarify, or perhaps Evelyn or Ben can advise.

I'm not clear on the difference between routine and recurrent maintenance.

My reading was that the distinction is based on whether the frequency is fixed or dependent on weather conditions, volume of traffic etc. In any case, I think it's OK to have a maintenance code and leave the distinctions to the .typeDetails field.

Anyhow, we'll need to be careful in distinguishing 'rehabilitation' from 'maintenance'.

Agreed.

[EvelynDinora]

Hi,

I had an internal discussion before responding to you and I could get the following explanation:

Periodic Maintenance, such as re-gravelling, or surface dressing, is carried out proactively on a planned basis shortly before visible signs of distress and defects, though the underlying deterioration can be detected and predicted through a testing regime including - in the case of sealed roads - deflection tests. By contrast, Rehabilitation occurs reactively after significant distress become visible, so requires a wider range of different interventions typically including partial reconstruction of the underlying pavement. As a result, Rehabilitation is much more expensive, and generally represents poor value for money, suggesting a failure in asset management systems or related capacity. Unlike Upgrading, neither Periodic Maintenance nor Rehabilitation entail any change to the road standard.

[EvelynDinora]

We know that they have something in common, but they are clearly different types of intervention:

Maintenance and rehabilitation are used to slow down or reset deterioration process.
Maintenance actions help slow the rate of deterioration by identifying and addressing specific deficiencies that contribute to overall deterioration.
Rehabilitation is the act of repairing portions of an existing assets to reset the deterioration process.

I think we will need either to extend the list or to covert it in an open list. What do you think @jpmckinney and @duncandewhurst?

[duncandewhurst]

Thanks @EvelynDinora, that's a really helpful clarification.

Based on your feedback and @jpmckinney's suggestion to map 'upgrade' to 'expansion' we could update the project type codelist as follows (changes in italics):

Project type codelist

Code	Title	Description
construction	Construction	The primary focus of this project is the construction of a new asset.
rehabilitation	Rehabilitation	The primary focus of this project is reactively addressing significant deficiencies in an existing asset to stop the asset deteriorating further.
replacement	Replacement	The primary focus of this project is the replacement of an existing asset.
expansion	Expansion	The primary focus of this project is the expansion or upgrade of an existing asset.
maintenance	Maintenance	The primary focus of this project is proactively identifying and addressing deficiences in an existing asset to slow the rate of deteriation of the asset.

CoST Ukraine could map their project types to the above codelist so that the data is interoperable and publish the original values in a .typeDetails field so that users can still filter on the same project types shown in the portal:

CoST Ukraine mapping

CoST Ukraine Project Type	OC4IDS Project Type
Construction	construction
Rehabilitation	rehabilitation
Upgrade	expansion
Periodic Maintenance	maintenance
Routine Maintenance	maintenance
Recurrent Maintenance	maintenance
Winter Maintenance	maintenance

This approach would allow us to keep the codelist closed, rather than mixing levels of detail in one open codelist. Do you think the proposed project type codelist is appropriate as a comprehensive list of project types for all kinds of infrastructure projects (i.e. not only roads)?

@jpmckinney what do you think?

For reference https://github.com/open-contracting/infrastructure/issues/17 has the background on the project type field.

[jpmckinney]

I like the proposed approach.

[EvelynDinora]

I agree with the approach too.

In case we need the definitions for Maintenance sub-categories I have asked my colleagues to provide something acceptable from a technical perspective:

Routine Maintenance Routine maintenance entails work that is required to be carried out continually (often on a rolling basis) on every road, irrespective of its engineering features or volume of vehicular traffic. Routine maintenance expenses are typically treated as fixed-cost items in the maintenance budget. They include lane marking, drainage clearing, bridge and culvert inspections and related minor maintenance and repairs, and grass cutting.

Recurrent Maintenance This is required at intervals during the year. The frequency of this maintenance depends on the topographic and climatic characteristics of the area and the volume of traffic on the road. For both paved and unpaved roads it entails the repair of minor potholes and other surface defects, and for unpaved roads also includes grading.

Periodic Maintenance This involves major repairs of those parts of the road that have deteriorated over a sustained period. The frequency typically involves intervals of 4 to 7 years. The activities include surface dressing or resealing and re-gravelling of shoulders for paved roads and re-gravelling for unpaved roads.

Emergency Maintenance This maintenance is carried out beyond routine, recurrent and periodic maintenance. In many countries it is prompted mainly by unexpected substantial landslides, when a road is abruptly cut or a bridge washout occurs. Or it could be required in response to a seismic event or major accident.

Winter Maintenance This maintenance is weather dependent, and generally consists of a combination of gritting and snow clearance, carried out in response to weather forecasts and road conditions. Though closely associated with winter, post-winter pothole repairs are normally classified as recurrent maintenance, though sometimes unused winter maintenance budgets can be used for this purpose.

If it is too much detailed please ignore the above.

[duncandewhurst]

Thanks, both.

I've suggested CoST Ukraine use this approach and include the descriptions provided by @EvelynDinora in their publication policy.

In terms of including the additional descriptions as a codelist, we'd need to think about how to do that exactly since they are specific to roads, but we could certainly include them in the documentation.

[duncandewhurst]

CoST would like to include the proposed changes in the 0.9.5 release. We'll need to check the proposed codes, titles and descriptions for alignment with the updated project definition and project status codelist added in 0.9.4.

[odscjen]

The proposed projectType code maintenance is in keeping with the updated project definition, however we did add a new projectStatus code also called maintenance as part of the already completed 0.9.5 upgrades. It's definition is

Maintenance covers any preventative or corrective maintenance and the day-to-day running of the assets. This stage is also called operation.

Comparing that to the proposed projectType code for maintainence

The primary focus of this project is proactively identifying and addressing deficiences in an existing asset to slow the rate of deterioration of the asset.

It's missing the element of prevention, i.e. identifying issues before they actually become a deficiency. Given that the proposed updated rehabilitation code is covering "significant deficiencies" should this maintenance be changed to:

The primary focus of this project is proactively identifying and addressing potential and minor deficiencies in an existing asset to slow the rate of deterioration of the asset."?

The updated project definition is also missing any reference to rehabilitation. This could be a simple insert into the existing definition list:

The development, maintenance, rehabilitation and decommissioning of a set of infrastructure assets in a specified location, generally the responsibility of a single procuring entity and budget authority: for example, a highway overpass or a university campus. Development covers project identification, preparation, implementation and completion.

Aside: Noticed that the project definition hasn't been updated in https://standard.open-contracting.org/staging/infrastructure/latest/en/reference/schema/#project

@duncandewhurst @EvelynDinora @jpmckinney

[jpmckinney]

For my part, I think this requires more domain-specific knowledge than I have.

That said, I would omit "potential and" as I'm not clear on how a potential deficiency can be addressed.

It'll be easier to review all projectType updates as a group, to check for consistency and lack of ambiguity.

I guess it's fine to have overlap between projectType and projectStatus, since perhaps the maintenance comes so many years after the original project, that operationally it is effectively like a new project. This is where domain-specific knowledge would help, as I don't know where practitioners draw the line here. But, since we already have an "rehabilitation" project type, I guess it falls into the same logic (i.e. too much time has passed, so it's a new project, even if it's the same asset). Note that the project definition doesn't allow for this ambiguity. According to the definition, projects are asset-based, and all activity with respect to the assets are the same project.

[duncandewhurst]

I guess it's fine to have overlap between projectType and projectStatus, since perhaps the maintenance comes so many years after the original project, that operationally it is effectively like a new project. This is where domain-specific knowledge would help, as I don't know where practitioners draw the line here. But, since we already have an "rehabilitation" project type, I guess it falls into the same logic (i.e. too much time has passed, so it's a new project, even if it's the same asset). Note that the project definition doesn't allow for this ambiguity. According to the definition, projects are asset-based, and all activity with respect to the assets are the same project.

That's how I've been thinking about decommissioning, which I understand is typically treated as a separate project. I'd been reading the definition as allowing for that possibility, but on re-reading I see that we should probably replace 'and' with 'and/or':

the development, maintenance and/or decommissioning of a set of infrastructure assets in a specified location, generally the responsibility of a single procuring entity and budget authority: for example, a highway overpass or a university campus. Development covers project identification, preparation, implementation and completion.

Regarding adding rehabilitation to the project definition, if we add that, I think we should probably add replacement and expansion, too. Similar to above, I'd previously been reading 'development' as a synonym for any of the project types, but now that we've added explicit references to maintenance and decommissioning, I think that we should be consistent.

[jpmckinney]

Sounds good!