A survey of the 1271-kilometre network will help provide some answers about when new roads and the money to construct them will be needed.
Dubbo City Council recently conducted the specialist analysis, a task done once every five years.

Together the roads the council is responsible for have a total length greater than the distance from Dubbo to Adelaide via Broken Hill.

While its engineers are yet to receive the results, for more than five years the council has flagged concerns about a backlog of infrastructure renewals.

The search for ways to gain financial sustainability prompted the council to engage Professor Percy Allan and his Review Today team.

Advice from Review Today in 2010 indicated that without funding changes, one quarter of Dubbo's roads assets would have deteriorated to an unacceptable condition by 2028 - a period of less than 30 years.

Prior to the commissioning of the report, technical services director Stewart McLeod had warned of a "tsunami of road pavement failures" if the council did not increase its expenditure on roads.

The Review Today report has informed the allocation of some additional funds to the backlog.

This month the survey was completed by Australian Road Research Board (ARRB) to provide accurate data about the condition of all sealed and unsealed roads maintained by the council.

Council asset systems engineer Michael McCulloch said the five-year survey was essential for predicting the remaining life of roads and to anticipate when resources would be required for the reconstruction of roads that have deteriorated below an acceptable standard.

It was no small task and used a lot of technology.

"There are 1271 kilometres of sealed and unsealed roads in the Dubbo LGA (Local Government Area)," Mr McCulloch said.

"This survey captures images that tell us the condition of the road pavements, the kerb and guttering and paved footpaths.

"The survey vehicle is equipped with a GPS unit, seven digital cameras which capture images of the pavement and roadside assets and 13 laser profilers for measuring the road's ride quality.

"The information is needed in predicting when resources will be required over the next 20 years and beyond for the cyclic renewal of council's road network."

The data is currently being professionally assessed and a report prepared for council's engineers.

In 2013 mayor Mathew Dickerson said proactively addressing financial sustainability remained a priority and the council had taken a number of actions and reviews.

At the time it was also allocating additional funds to the infrastructure backlog including budgeting an extra $2.67 million in the next four years.