Rehabilitation of the Service Roads and Bravo Taxiway at the East London Airport

Africoast Consulting Engineers was appointed by ACSA for the maintenance and rehabilitation investigation and design of the airside and landside service roads and Bravo and Golf Taxiways at East London Airport (ELA).

As-built information on the airside and landside roads was not sufficient to undertake detailed design. Additional information in the form of visual pavement inspections and geotechnical and material testing was conducted to determine the existing pavement conditions. There were further challenges regarding the traffic analysis, with recent traffic fluctuations on the taxiways and the landside access road being problematic due to the on-set of Covid-19 and the effect it had on local and international travel. Before the Covid-19 lock down the general trend for Air Traffic Movements (ATMs) had already shown a steady downward trend. The Covid-19 lockdown impacted traffic figures negatively on all airports in SA.

The structural analysis that followed for each road element was based on the basic material quality and thickness information.  Appropriate maintenance and/or special maintenance actions were proposed and designed keeping in mind the constructability constraints applicable when working within an airport environment.

The project was completed up to the end of the documentation and procurement stage of the project life cycle. Unfortunately with the significant changes to air travel movements as a result of COVID-19, affected available budgets and therefore ACSA opted to put the construction of the works temporarily on hold.