Vegetation growth along highways has always been a significant maintenance issue for transportation departments, given the adverse impact that poorly managed vegetation can have on a modern highway system through increased risks to traffic, premature deterioration of the road system infrastructure and adverse environmental impact. The need for effective vegetation management is further underscored by other factors such as reductions in resource availability due to budget cuts, new environmental laws and a general increase in public awareness of environmental impact of herbicides, carbon emissions and invasive species. In response to these, there has been the development of Integrated Roadside Vegetation Management Program (IRVMP) that is gaining increased recognition among transportation managers in the United States.
The need for data-based cost-effectiveness measures is now even more imperative because in North Carolina, the legislature has been placing an emphasis on needs-based budgeting. This further underscores the requirement for a complete understanding of current vegetation management procedures being employed by NCDOT, their organizational ownerships and the inter-organizational relationships that are currently in place to manage them across the states 14 Divisions. In addition to this, it is also imperative to have reliable cost and effectiveness data associated with each vegetation management practice. It is only with this knowledge that NCDOT can develop and enact (i) efficient organizational structures and procedures and (ii) cost-effective and need-based vegetation management budgets that are grounded in reliable data.
