Road Formation

The Road Formation is the surface of finished earthworks on which a road pavement is constructed. It includes the earthworks, the general shaping of the road and basic drainage, but excluding stormwater infrastructure.

M15%20-%20Formation%20on%20curve%20-%20no%20superelevtion.%20Patrick%20Plains%20Shire%2C%20c.1926.%20Digital%20ID%2020224_a038_001731.jpg
Image: NSW State Archives - (CC BY 4.0) licence

Glossary of Austroads Terms

The Glossary of Austroads Terms defines the "formation" as "the surface of finished earthworks, excluding cut or fill batters."

International Financial Reporting Standards

The financial reporting standards require that major parts (significant components) of assets be separately identified and depreciated. This has been interpreted to mean that the road formation should be separately valued & depreciated.

Depreciation of Road Formations

Road formations are typically depreciated over a very long period, but Interpretation 1055 Accounting for Road Earthworks suggests that some but not all road earthworks do not have a limited useful life, and don't need to be depreciated.

Useful Life

The useful life of a road formation will vary considerably due to a wide range of environmental factors.

The table below shows the useful life for road formations adopted by Councils or published elsewhere. At the moment a useful life of 1000 years seems to be typical. Please feel free to add your Councils information below.

Council Adopted Life
Camden Council 999 years
Campbelltown City Council 1000 years
Hume City Council 1000 years
Muswellbrook Shire Council 1000 years
Wollondilly Shire Council 1000 years
Bundaberg Regional Council 150 years
Whittlesea City Council ∞ years

Related Pages

Contributors

The following site members have contributed to this page:

External Links & References

  1. Interpretation 1055 Accounting for Road Earthworks
  2. Google Search
  3. NSW State Archives & Records
Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License