This paper presents an analytical framework for the analysis of the maintenance of minor roads in Austrian and French rural areas. Minor rural roads are essential components of landscapes, as constitutive elements and supports of access. Moreover, their management reflects the current evolution of uses in the countryside as well as the potential conflicts between new uses (recreation, sports, nature conservation) and traditional uses (circulation, production). The aim of the study is to shed light on the governance of rural landscapes. In the context of economic and demographic changes in the French and Austrian countryside, what are the implications of the organisation of the supply of landscape maintenance in terms of economic development and employment? From a theoretical point of view, the research is based on the fields of service economics and New Institutional Economics (NIE). We focus on the organisation of the environmental services at stake in the maintenance of minor rural roads. In our definition, the provision of environmental services is intentional from the point of view of the service provider and corresponds to a collective demand (Aznar, Perrier-Cornet, 2003). The framework of NIE and more particularly of Transaction Cost Theory (TCT) allows for an analysis of the organisational forms governing the provision of rural roads maintenance services (such as, mowing of road verges, marking of roads, planting and maintenance of hedges, trees or herbaceous borders). The paper describes the organisation of the maintenance of minor rural roads in the Austrian and French contexts and identifies several research issues in the light of the NIE framework.