Roads benchmarking 2024

Roads benchmarking 2024

We are delighted to announce the completion of our 2024 road benchmarking spreadsheet. Unlike last year, when we had to wait until May for most councils to complete their 2023 audited statements, this year we finalised the report in late February, thanks to the timely submission of statements to the NSW Office of Local Government (OLG) by the majority of councils.

This marks the seventh consecutive year of our commitment to this initiative since its launch in 2018.

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

Our goal is to offer a simple yet effective comparative tool to assist councils in evaluating their road network’s replacement costs annually, conducting internal desktop revaluations, or critically reviewing external valuations. We believe this resource is invaluable for benchmarking purposes and will significantly support councils in ensuring the accuracy and integrity of their road network valuations.

This is particularly relevant as, in the 2025 financial year, at least 56 councils—nearly half of all in NSW—are expected to undertake road revaluations. Having access to up-to-date benchmarking unit rates will be a valuable tool in analysing and conducting these revaluations effectively.

The spreadsheet is available on this link ->> Roads benchmarking 2024

Some findings are summarised below.

Valuer

In the 2024 financial year, 26 NSW councils conducted comprehensive revaluations of their road assets (an increase from 20 in 2023). Of these, approximately 10 councils carried out the process internally, while the remaining 16 engaged external valuers.

Since the 2018 financial year, councils have adopted different approaches to valuation, with roughly half relying on internal expertise and the other half utilising external valuers, as illustrated in the list below.

Count of NSW councils broken down by the valuers of road assets since 2018

As we can see, over the past seven years, out of 128 councils, 61 opted for internal valuation. This demonstrates that conducting valuations in-house is not only a viable approach but also an effective one—provided that proper controls are in place to oversee the revaluation process.

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 2024, about 55 councils had the highest unit rates for sealed roads (>$400k per km) which is comparable to the results from 2023 financial year (50 councils). Summary of all councils presented in the graph below.

Unsealed roads

23 councils’ unsealed road rates were within $0k-$50k per one kilometre; 20 councils were in the group of $50-$100k per one kilometre. The two groups combined comprise one third of all councils. About 10 councils had unsealed roads unit rates above $150k per one kilometre. Unfortunately, we could not figure out details for unsealed roads values of about 60 councils which are in a “N/A” group as can be seen in the 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 (40 councils) used rates below $100k per kilometre. However, there are still many councils with the unit rate of more than $200k per kilometre (23 councils). See details in the graph below.