Publish information related to road system (UA0098)

Today in Ukraine, there is a lack of up-to-date data on general-use roads of local importance, including their assignment and geolocation, and on the actual condition of the road network. The available documents are often outdated and are in paper form, which complicates the high-quality planning and implementation of an effective system for prioritising road repair and construction. Effective management of the road system and its infrastructure requires a clear understanding of the volume, condition, and dynamics of this system’s indicators. The collection of source data for this system is very expensive; and information storage is imperfect, which also makes automatic search impossible. In addition, citizens do not have access to up-to-date information on road condition and lack the ability to provide feedback on the quality of repairs or on a road’s emergency condition. The project Digital Road (an electronic database containing characteristics of general-use motorways of national and local significance) would be an effective tool for planning road construction works and exercising control over the state of the network of locally significant general-use motorways. Implementing the project will: improve the performance of regional road construction units; ensure effective control by the Ministry of Infrastructure; facilitate improvement in the effectiveness of strategic planning; and facilitate public and business access to data on the status, technical indicators, and geo-coordinates of locally significant general-use motorways.

Steps Responsible persons Time-frame Partners Performance indicator 1. Developing the data structure and information model of the electronic database on technical characteristics of generalMinistry of Infrastructure State Enterprise Industry Center for Digitalization and Cybersecurity (by agreement) January–March 2021 advisory and supervisory group of the Construction Sector Transparency Initiative (CoST) in Ukraine (by agreement) data structure and information model of the electronic database on technical characteristics of general-use roads of national and local 35 Steps Responsible persons Time-frame Partners Performance indicator use roads of national and local importance importance have been developed 2. Developing the software for the electronic database on technical characteristics of generaluse roads of national and local importance —“— March–August 2021 —“— the software for the electronic database on technical characteristics of general-use roads of national and local importance has been developed 3. Collecting passport, technical, and spatial data on road network objects Ministry of Infrastructure State Enterprise Industry Center for Digitalization and Cybersecurity (by agreement) August 2021– December 2022 advisory and supervisory group of the Construction Sector Transparency Initiative (CoST) in Ukraine (by agreement) the data on technical characteristics of generaluse roads of national and local importance has been collected and entered into the electronic database

Action Plan Review

Commitment 12: Opening access to information on general-use roads of national and local importance

Results Report

Commitment 12. Opening access to information on general-use roads of national and local importance

This commitment planned to create a database on the conditions, technical characteristics, and geolocations of national and local roads.

In 2021, the terms of reference for the required software was discussed with NGOs, academia, the State Road Research Institute, and business associations. In parallel, the Ukrainian Road Agency (Ukravtodor) [107] provided access to spatial coordinates of international, national, and regional roads on a new KM+ geocalculator portal, which included API. [108] Ukravtodor and the Ministry of Digital Transformation set up this portal in 2020 with the support of the USAID & UK Aid-funded TAPAS project. [109] Access to the portal was restricted following the start of the war. [110] The restructuring of the Ministry of Infrastructure in December 2022 brought new priorities, and there was no agreement among stakeholders on the final setup of the project. Meanwhile, the ministry faced funding shortages as government budget was redirected for national security needs. [111]

In November 2022, the Cabinet of Ministers adopted a resolution on the implementation of a new infrastructure system as an experimental project. The resolution aimed to create, implement, and maintain a unified digital system for managing the infrastructure reconstruction process. Based on the resolution, the Ministry for Communities, Territories, and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine alongside RISE Ukraine (a coalition of Ukrainian and international organizations) piloted a single digital source on reconstruction in 2023 after the action plan implementation period. The project, named Digital Restoration Ecosystem for Accountable Management (DREAM), will collect all project data in user-friendly tables, graphs, and charts using the Open Contracting Data Standard. [112] The platform will provide information on road damage and renovations, allowing public oversight on the war-affected roads.

The government plans to approve a national recovery strategy for the updated National Transport Strategy, named Drive Ukraine 2030. The strategy will inform the software for collecting and publishing information on road networks and the technical characteristics of roads. [113] In addition, the government’s anti-corruption program adopted in June 2022 will create an open map of road construction and repair, the tenders, and contracts to avoid duplicate work on the same sites. The activities under these different strategies should be coordinated for better effectiveness.