The initial discussions of working group of the PIARC Technical Committee on Performance of Road Administrations (C15) on quality systems indicated that they were being used by road administrations to improve management at both the organisational and project level.

The working group developed a conceptual framework to show the relationship between organisation-wide quality systems and project level quality systems. The development of this conceptual model was done in cooperation with the PIARC Committee on Road Management (C6). It was agreed that the primary focus of C15's work would be on the implementation of Quality Management Systems at the organisational level while C6 would focus on the use of quality management systems for project management.

Quality systems at both the organisational and project level are important to a comprehensive quality system framework for management of a road system. This report covers the work of C15 dealing with quality systems and improved performance.