DRAFT FINAL REPORT The World Bank ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN POST CONFLICT TRANSPORT STUDY Table of Content SUMMARY 1 BACKGROUND 2 General 2 Standards and quality of work 3 Road machinery and equipment 4 ARMENIA 6 1 Transport potential 6 1.1 Transport needs, 6 1.2 Transport fleet characteristics 6 1.3 Traffic estimates 6 2 Institutional capacity 7 2.1 Road sector institutions (Client functions) 7 2.2 Road design 8 2.3 Road maintenance 8 3 Rehabilitation and improvement program 12 3.1 Road inspection and condition survey 12 3.2 Rehabilitation and reconstruction program 13 3.3 Program components 14 3.4 Institutional development needs and recommended actions 15 AZERBAIJAN 17 4 Transport potential 17 4.1 Transport needs, 17 4.2 Transport fleet characteristics 17 4.3 Traffic estimates 18 5 Institutional capacity 18 5.1 Road sector institutions (Client functions) 18 5.2 Road design 19 5.3 Road maintenance 20 6 Rehabilitation and improvement program 25 6.1 Road inspection and condition survey. 25 6.2 Rehabilitation and reconstruction program 26 6.3 Rehabilitation and reconstruction program in the conflict area. 26 6.4 Coordination of rehabilitation of the Occupied Zone 28 6.5 Improvement of roads outside the Conflict Zone 30 6.6 Program components 30 6.7 Institutional development needs and recommended actions. 33 APPENDICES 34 SWEROAD 24 August, 2000 DRAFT FINAL REPORT The World Bank ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN POST CONFLICT TRANSPORT STUDY Summary When "The Great Peace" occurs, two things will happen, which affects the need for roads and roadwork: Resettling in the evacuated areas Increased flows of goods and people between countries Resettling is not a major problem in Armenia, where the number of refugees is small, and where the refugees are said to have settled elsewhere in Armenia or abroad and have no intentions to move back to their previous locations. The situation is worse in Azerbaijan, where there is a large number of refugees, to a great extent living in temporary and primitive camps. The so-called "Occupied Area" comprises 13 thousand square kilometres, with a road network of 4500 kms. ARRA has estimated that this entire network has to be rehabilitated and some 110 bridges have to be renovated. The total cost is estimated at 200 MUSD exclusive of the cost for the bridges. Our estimate of the costs for urgent repairs to facilitate resettlement is 95 MUSD. The needs in a second phase, some years after resettlement has started, are estimated at some 185 MUSD. Annual maintenance costs for the roads concerned in Azerbaijan are estimated at 2.7 MUSD/year. The needs for urgent road repairs in the conflict zone in the northeast of Armenia are estimated at 3 MUSD. For the international traffic there are some potentially important links, for which required detailed planning should start. Roughly estimated costs to open the links is shown in parenthesis. Total costs are estimated at 10 -15 MUSD. 1. Sevan - Dilian - Gazakh connecting Armenia and Azerbaijan and forming a link in an important international network. (4 MUSD) 2. Gyumri - Turkey border will become a part in the same link and opening up a direct link between Armenia and Turkey. (Urgent repairs: 1 MUSD) 3. Construction of the missing link of the road along the Iran border connecting Azerbaijan with Nakhichevan. (8 MUSD) Agdam - Stepanakert - Goris - Nakhichevan could also be a link worthwhile to study. Generally, it is recommended that road maintenance should be given first priority, which pays back immediately in lower traffic costs, Construction of new roads should be proved economically feasible and implemented according to good international standard and procedures. International support, money and expertise, is needed to solve the acute situation in the conflict zone in Azerbaijan. The expertise should involve coordination of the restoration, planning, implementation, audit and follow up. The heritage from the FSU still affects the public sector management, quality of work and supply and handling of plant and equipment and needs support to remedy. SWEROAD 1(64) 24 August, 2000 DRAFT FINAL REPORT The World Bank ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN POST CONFLICT TRANSPORT STUDY The situation is an excellent opportunity to make environmental ambitions real. Background General The Southern Caucasus region concerned consists of the three former Soviet republics Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, surrounded by Turkey, Russia and Iran. The main conflict affecting the region is the one between Armenia and Azerbaijan with the two areas Karabakh and Nakhichevan. Other relations between neighbours are however not entirely without problems. GEORGIA ARMENIA AZERBAIJAN Major conflict area Figure 1 Southern Caucasus region (Source: Map from TRACECA web site) Some main statistical data about the Armenia and Azerbaijan are shown in the table below Country Area, Population Gross Motor Vehicle Road Network 103 km2 Domestic Fleet length Product, Number, 106 % in major Density, USD*106 All vehicles 103 kms cities inh/km2 103 Armenia 29.7 3.5 67% 118 9.2 245 6.2 Azerbaijan 86.6 7.7 53% 89 12.9 420 24.3 SWEROAD 2(64) 24 August, 2000 DRAFT FINAL REPORT The World Bank ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN POST CONFLICT TRANSPORT STUDY !) (1998 est. purchasing power parity) This study is based on the vision that there is peace in the region and that goods and people can move freely within, between and through the countries concerned. Field work including collection of data and information from interviews with representatives of various organisations and institutions and from inspections of open roads was executed during a two and half week visit to the two countries by the three-man team. The team consisted of Frank Granberg, Sigitas Bublis and Arne Nilsson. Mr. Michael Sims has been engaged for literature research. The Dorproject institute in Yerevan and the Scientific Research Center in Baku were engaged for providing various services and organising meetings. Data is frequently quoted from earlier TACIS and TRACECA studies as well as The World Bank web site. Maps from the TRACECA web site are used in the report. The report is organised in three sections, a common general background and one section each for Armenia and Azerbaijan respectively. Notes and references are contained in Appendix. Armenia and Azerbaijan like most FSU countries have inherited a low standard and quality of work and an outmoded and worn out set of plant and equipment from the previous era. Below are some general remarks on these two subjects. Standards and quality of work GOST and SN&P, the standards which were valid in the former Soviet Union, are still used as the basis for road design and construction standards and norms in both Azerbaijan and Armenia. Although the above standards are rather rigid and the conducted construction material tests do not essentially differ from European/Western test standards, low quality or non-standard construction materials are still being used in road construction. It is necessary to implement a control and quality system to ensure long service life of all the road components (earth banks, foundations, road pavements, bridges, traffic safety means, etc.). The system would include construction material tests and continuous supervision of construction activities. Though the personnel seems to have adequate technical-theoretical knowledge, the understanding of quality management is essentially low, and the different level managers' opinion about quality of construction materials and construction activities is often too optimistic and totally ungrounded by European/Western experience. It would thus be reasonable to arrange training for the staff at different levels in the areas of construction material testing and quality management (as a whole system) which also would include road maintenance aspects. It is recommended to improve road pavement design methods and calculation of pavement resistance, considering bitumen materials in use, ways and measures of their improvement, aggregate quality, etc. At the same time it is necessary to evaluate the impact of vehicles on the pavement (axle load norms, traffic intensity, vehicle flow composition, etc.). SWEROAD 3(64) 24 August, 2000 DRAFT FINAL REPORT The World Bank ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN POST CONFLICT TRANSPORT STUDY Alongside with the increased service life of road pavements this would enable a more efficient and economical road construction and maintenance in general. The conclusion is that inadequate standards and low road construction quality is caused by the following: · inadequate technologies of road pavement design · use of non-standard materials · low quality of work · inadequate machinery and equipment. In some cases western standards are introduced used in road construction field. E.g., in Armenia new road standards are being worked out based on Finnish and American standards. Some of these standards are applied in practice in road design and road construction. Preparation of new standards has not started in Azerbaijan yet. It is only in some separate cases that Turkish standards are applied. Application of certain advanced standard is not yet formally legalized neither in Armenia nor Azerbaijan, and this is likely to cause problems in the future. Standards for Traffic safety and Environment protection are not implemented. The laboratory equipment available in both the countries seems to be adequate for conducting most laboratory tests according to GOST standard requirements. Laboratory facilities are replenished with new more modern equipment (funded mostly from loans received for road construction projects) but this process is rather slow, especially in Armenia. Azerbaijan has recently ordered new equipment (amounting to 70.000 USD) to be used for testing bitumen and asphalt concrete materials. Another problem is reliability of laboratory activities, honesty factor taken into account. The procedure of making decisions in case of negative laboratory tests remains unclear. It is possible that laboratory test results have only informative character to the authorities, and no or only minor improvements are being made on their basis to correct the shortcomings.