Roads benchmarking 2023

We are pleased to announce that our 2023 road benchmarking spreadsheet is now complete. Despite the challenges and delays brought on by the 2023 year audits, our commitment to providing valuable data on NSW councils' road unit rates remains unwavering. This marks our sixth consecutive year of dedication to this initiative since its inception in 2018.

The spreadsheet provides a detailed summary of each NSW council's road gross replacement cost per kilometer, compiled from data published by the NSW councils, the NSW Office of Local Government, and Transport for NSW.

Our aim is to offer a straightforward comparative tool that assists councils in the annual assessment of their road network's fair value, facilitates internal desktop revaluations, or aids in the critical review of external valuations.

We believe this tool is invaluable for benchmarking purposes and will greatly support councils in maintaining the integrity and accuracy of their road network valuations.

The spreadsheet is available on this link ->> Roads benchmarking 2023.

Some findings are summarised below.

Valuer

In 2023 financial year, 19 NSW councils performed comprehensive revaluation of road assets. Half of those councils did this internally and half – by engaging an external valuer.

Overall, since 2018 financial year, following external valuers and asset management consulting firms were engaged by councils: APV, Marsh (previously, AssetVal), JRA, Shepherd Asset Management Solutions, EMC-Works, G7 Asset Management, Infrastructure Management Group, Talis Consulting, Civil Engineering Consultants, Pavement Management Services, Assetic, Australis, Morrison Low, Cardno Pty Ltd, inSights, Tonkin Consulting.

Unit Rates

By aggregating all unit rates into groups ($’000/km), some interesting results can be derived.

Overall roads (excluding earthworks)

8 councils reported rates were between $50k to $100k. 17 councils had road rates between $100k to $150k. Comparable number of councils (about 20) applied $150k to $200k rates. But most to the councils (about 80) road rates were above $200k per kilometer.

Sealed roads

As at 30 June 2023, about 50 councils have the largest unit rates for sealed roads (>$400k per km) which is comparable to the results from 2022 financial year (47 councils). Summary of all councils presented in the graph below.

Unsealed roads

23 councils’ unsealed road rates are within $0k-$50k per one kilometer; 25 councils were in the next group of $50-$100k per one kilometer. The two groups combined comprise one third of all councils. About 13 councils have unsealed roads unit rates above $150k per one kilometer. Unfortunately, we could not figure out details for unsealed roads values of about 58 councils which are in a “N/A” group. More details available in a graph below.

Bulk earthworks

There is some uncertainty about 45 councils which did not disclose value of road earthworks in their financial statements or in Special Schedule 7 (because they were combined with the roads values). From the rest of the group, significant portion (45 councils) used rates below $100k per kilometer. However, there are still many councils with the unit rate of more than $200k per kilometer (23 councils). See details in the graph below.

Contact us

Vanguard provides services for fair value assessment, desktop revaluation of roads as well as coordination of external revaluation of all classes of infrastructure assets. Contact us any time to discuss your needs. We are here to help!