Road management and maintenance

See changed traffic conditions at VicTraffic.

Maintenance is a critical part of running of Victoria’s road network. A functioning and well-maintained network supports safer and more reliable journeys for all road users, whether you’re driving a car or truck, riding a bike or crossing the street.

Maintenance is just one of the functions undertaken by the Department of Transport and Planning that keeps Victorians connected and moving around the state safely.

The maintenance program is developed keeping in mind the life cycle of the road, nearby infrastructure and road upgrades, changes to road function or traffic patterns and any major works that are taking place across the road network.

We’re responsible for managing:

• freeways (excluding CityLink, EastLink and Peninsula Link)
• arterial roads (excluding service lanes, footpaths and roadside areas in urban areas)
• a limited number of non-arterial roads.

For a full list, see our map of declared roads.

The rest of the roads in Victoria (around 150,000km) are managed by local councils and other government departments.

How does Department of Transport and Planning maintain these roads?

To make sure our roads are safe and efficient for all road users, we undertake regular maintenance activities as part of our annual maintenance plan.

With non-stop traffic and seasonal changes all year round, our roads need care throughout the year. Each road has a unique life-cycle, meaning different kinds of works are needed at different times. There are three main types of maintenance works: routine maintenance, periodic maintenance and rehabilitation.

Routine maintenance

These works fix minor defects before they become significant problems. Routine works include repairing potholes, cleaning gutters and drains, repairing damaged signs and clearing litter.

Periodic maintenance

Resurfacing

These cost-effective works help us to preserve our roads and avoid more expensive rehabilitation works. These works include road resurfacing (sometimes called resealing) and corrosion protection for bridges.

How does resurfacing help?

Our roads are made up of layers, with the road surface sitting on top of a structural ‘road pavement’ layer. When just the road surface is cracked or damaged, the pavement underneath may still be intact. When this happens, resurfacing the road can prevent further damage being caused to the underlying layer. This saves money and restores the road back to its original standard.

Rehabilitation

When the “road pavement” layer of a road is damaged, rehabilitation works help to restore the road back to its original standard. These works are more extensive, and they involve replacing both the pavement and road surface layers.

Roadsides and structures maintenance

We carry out regular inspections of roads and roadsides and we manage 4,000 km of road in the metro network (23,000 kilometres across the state), and there are many competing demands on roadside maintenance, including, litter collection, graffiti removal and vegetation management. Rubbish causing obstruction is dealt with immediately, everything else goes to maintenance.

The constant graffiti vandalism and rubbish dumping on freeways and other road infrastructure is an ongoing frustration for DTP and the community.

Roadside and structure maintenance is addressed in accordance with our strategic prioritisation system. As there are many road maintenance demands at any given time, work that has the greatest impact on improving public safety is given the highest priority.

How we prioritise our works

To make sure we do the right maintenance at the right time, we use a strategic prioritisation system to identify the needs of each road. Based on this, we rate the urgency of works as:

• Critical – works are needed to restore a road’s safety or productivity 
• Needed – proactive works are needed to prevent deterioration of the road in the short term (12-24 months)
• Desirable – proactive works would help limit premature road damage and minimise the lifetime costs of the road.

Maintenance scheduling

While we work to a planned maintenance schedule, our schedule is flexible and can change.

Sometimes, our works are rescheduled due to:

• adverse weather conditions
• coordinating with conflicting works or projects in the same area
• prioritisation of works – for example, emergency works take priority over scheduled works
• availability of budget and resources

When this happens, our maintenance team will reschedule and reprioritise any missed works to ensure they are completed at the earliest time possible. Where works cannot be completed immediately, we will implement alternative safety treatments to keep road users safe whilst we schedule works for delivery.

Contact us

To find out more, you can contact us.

How do I report a road hazard?

For road hazards that are urgent and present an immediate danger, call 13 11 70.

For other road issues that do not preset an immediate danger (such as faded linemarking, small potholes or fallen signage) please follow the link if you wish to report a road issue.