Economic, Environmental and Social Impact of Changes in Maintenance Spend on Roads in Scotland Summary Report

2 The Scottish Road Network - Key Information

Local Authorities and Transport Scotland spent £654m on road maintenance in 2009/10 (Audit Scotland, 2011):

• Local Authorities spent £492m on local roads which represents a 12% increase on 2004/05 expenditure levels after taking into account general inflation.
• Transport Scotland spent £162m on trunk roads which represents a 12% decrease on 2004/05 after taking into account general inflation.

The road network is 56,000km in length of which 3,400km are trunk roads^[4]. These figures show the difference in costs per length of road, with trunk roads receiving approximately 5 times the expenditure per kilometre, demonstrating the difference in the asset value and strategic importance placed on the different road types.

Around 43 billion vehicle kilometres were travelled on the network in 2010, including around 16 billion travelled on the trunk road network.

These figures are examples of the significant differences between trunk and local roads which affect the type and level of the social, environmental and economic impacts of road maintenance. For example, impacts on pedestrians will be more significant on local roads than they are on trunk roads.