Your Guide to Transportation Asset Management
Strategic management of physical assets, resources, and information
is the key to getting the best return on every dollar spent to build
and maintain transportation infrastructure. Making these management
approaches smarter is the theme that runs throughout the new Transportation
Asset Management Guide now available from the American Association
of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). The Guide was
developed under National Cooperative Highway Research Program Project
20-24(11).
The Guide looks at how Transportation Asset Management can be applied
to an array of highway agency activities and decisions, including program
development for capital projects, system preservation, operations, multimodal
transportation planning, and real-time and periodic system monitoring.
The publication is designed for use by all levels of State and local
transportation agencies.
Guidebook users will find the framework and principles of Asset Management,
as well as information on how to develop a strategy for implementing
Asset Management. The publication organizes the principles and best
practices of Asset Management into four key areas: policy goals and
objectives, planning and programming, program delivery, and information
and analysis. An objectives matrix looks at the relationship between
Asset Management and policy: How do Asset Management principles allow
policy goals to be formulated more intelligently, and how in turn do
established policy objectives affect Asset Management choices? Under
the planning area, the Guide looks at how to make the best decisions
about resource allocation and infrastructure investments. For example,
the Colorado Department of Transportation has defined Program Investment
Categories, including safety, mobility, and system quality, that relate
directly to transportation policy goals and performance measures. The
program delivery section of the Guide, meanwhile, considers various
options for best utilizing resources and tailoring management methods.
For example, the use of design-build contracting can streamline project
planning and save agencies time and money. Finally, the information
and analysis section examines the use of information technology to help
collect, interpret, and report the data needed to improve the transportation
decision-making process. The Virginia Department of Transportation,
for example, has developed a comprehensive Inventory and Condition Assessment
System to facilitate the management of its highway and road networks.
The system uses state-of-the-art automated data collection and global
positioning technologies to provide an accurate inventory of transportation
system assets and to determine and record their condition.
To help agencies implement Asset Management guidelines in ways that
will work best for their circumstances, the Guide also includes a detailed
self-assessment tool. The self-assessment enables an agency to answer
such questions as:
- How can your agency improve asset performance?
- Are current or planned agency initiatives in infrastructure management
sufficient, or do they require modification, addition, or redirection?
- What infrastructure management approaches and techniques have worked
well for other agencies?
The Guide has been adopted by the Federal Highway Administration’s
(FHWA) National Highway Institute as the textbook for a 1-day course
aimed at senior- and mid-level executives from transportation agencies
(see sidebar). Participants will come away with an understanding of
the basics of Asset Management and how they relate to the real-world
scenarios that agencies encounter.
You can find the Guide online at downloads.transportation.org/amguide.pdf.
For more information, contact David Clawson, Program Director for Policy
and Planning at AASHTO, 202-624-5807 (email: davidc@aashto.org),
or David Geiger, Director of the Office of Asset Management at FHWA,
202-366-0392 (email: david.r.geiger@fhwa.dot.gov).
| How can transportation agencies
manage and preserve the life of their infrastructure and deliver
the highest return for the taxpayers’ dollars? A new 1-day
course available from FHWA’s National Highway Institute
(NHI), Transportation Asset Management (Course No. 131106),
addresses these questions and more as it introduces the principles,
techniques, and benefits of Asset Management. The course material
is based on the Transportation Asset Management Guide
now available from AASHTO.
The course presents best practices in the areas of policy development,
planning and programming, program delivery, operations, and use
of information and analytic tools. It is designed for mid- and
senior-level managers from State departments of transportation
and other transportation agencies. The course fee is $200 per
participant, with a maximum class size of 40.
For information on scheduling the course, contact Danielle Mathis-Lee
at NHI, 703-235-0528 (email: danielle.mathis-lee@fhwa.dot.gov).
To learn more, visit www.nhi.fhwa.dot.gov/training/course_detail.aspx?num=FHWA-NHI-131106&cat=&key=&num=131106&loc=&sta=%25&tit=&typ=&lev=&ava=&str=&end=&drl=.
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Articles in this issue:
Safety, Security, Reliability, and Efficiency: Working
Together for Better Bridges and Tunnels
A Virtual Introduction to Segmental Concrete Bridge
Technology
The Concrete of the Future
Your Guide to Transportation Asset Management
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