Document Library

This manual provides guidance for the application of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) as a decision support tool in road asset management. AHP is a multi-criteria analysis technique that allows trade-off between objectives with different measurement units. With AHP, the user can rank or prioritise a number of options according to their performance in achieving the objectives or assessment criteria. In this manual, the steps involved in applying AHP for the following road asset management activities are demonstrated by examples: ranking maintenance intervention criteria, allocating budget across the different assets and trading-off maintenance intervention criteria across assets to meet budget limits.

This manual on bridge and highway maintenance contains seven major chapters as follow: 1. Maintenance Management; 2. Roadway Maintenance and Management; 3. Bridge Maintenance and Management; 4. Equipment Systems; 5. Maintenance Research and Development; 6. Tort Litigation; and 7. Systems Operation and Management.

This synthesis was designed to gain a better understanding of the state of the practice for managing transportation infrastructure assets other than pavements and bridges, identify best practices, and document gaps in knowledge and areas for further study. It examines key aspects of asset management related to selected infrastructure assets (traffic signals, lighting, signs, pavement lane striping and other markings, drainage culverts and pipes, and sidewalks), including primary sources of technical guidance for management; basic approaches to budgeting for and conducting preservation, operation, and maintenance; organizational responsibilities for ongoing maintenance; measurement of asset condition and performance, including methods and frequencies of data collection; estimates of service lives (or deterioration models) for key components of the selected assets, accounting for the different materials used; information technology capabilities available to help agencies manage these selected assets; and perceptions of the transportation objectives that are served by maintaining selected assets in good condition.

Transport for London's 2007 Highway Asset Management Plan is structured to first, connect strategic context with everyday work, and second, to outline the capital renewal and operational management of various highway asset types. For each of the asset types covered in the TAMP, the document provides a summary describing the importance of maintaining the asset in a state of good repair, as well as potential improvements.

This case study details the implementation of a culvert management system (CMS) in three States and one local agency, in order to encourage and facilitate the inclusion of frequently overlooked highway features in TAM. The report is part of the FHWA Office of Asset Management's series of case studies on TAM, produced with the goal of sharing information between agencies to improve efficiency.

This project provides information about the concept of remaining service life (RSL), and defines key terms that are closely related to RSL in order to facilitate the use of RSL estimation for maintenance planning.

A literature review of Austroads project AT1042 Process for Setting Intervention Criteria and Allocating Budgets. The report outlines techniques to facilitate decision-making at road agencies and reviews the effectiveness of several prioritization strategies.

A research report published by Austroads in 2006 that focuses on the process by which community input and expectations can be assessed, in order to optimize road network maintenance programming.

State transportation agencies successfully use performance measurement to solve complex management challenges. This report illustrates the use of performance-based management approaches in the state departments of transportation (DOTs). It concentrates on three performance areas which exemplify the use of performance management systems, outcomes and measurement techniques based on a sample set of state DOTs that use a broad range of measures. The performance areas are: (1) asset management, (2) congestion and system performance, and (3) safety. The DOTs in Washington, Florida, Minnesota, Maryland, and Missouri were selected as case studies to show how state DOTs utilize performance measurement.

Efficient highway investment decision-making becomes increasingly important in transportation. In order to facilitate such a decision process, first issue is to estimate benefits of highway projects and utilize those values for project selection to yield optimal investment decisions. The existing methodologies for highway project evaluation are limited to probabilistic risk assessments of input factors such as construction, rehabilitation, and maintenance costs, travel demand, and discount rates that are inherited with risks. This research introduces a new approach for highway project evaluation extended from Shackle’s model to explicitly address cases where those factors are under uncertainty with no definable probability distributions. Then, a generalized methodology for highway project evaluation with input factors under certainty, risk, and uncertainty is established. If an input factor is under certainty, its single value is directly used. If an input factor is under risk, the mathematical expectation of the factor based on probabilistic risk assessment can be determined. If an input factor is under uncertainty, a single-valued outcome of the factor can be estimated according to a preset decision rule in the extension of Shackle’s model. The values of input factors separately determined under certainty, risk, and uncertainty can be used to compute the overall benefits of a highway project in the physical asset’s one service life-cycle and in perpetuity horizon, respectively. The developed methodology offers flexibility for the decision-maker to consider any combination of input factors under certainty, risk or uncertainty and it could be applied to estimate the amount of benefits associated with sub-project benefit items (if a specific benefit item is further separable) under certainty, risk, or uncertainty in accordance with available information. For project selection, a stochastic optimization model is developed as the multi-choice multidimensional Knapsack problem with Ω-stage budget recourses. The model facilitates the selection of a subset of candidate highway projects across a multiyear period under budget uncertainty in order to achieve maximized overall project benefits. Contract-, corridor-, and deferment-based tradeoff methods are employed to assess the impacts of spatial and temporal restrictions on project selection results. An efficient solution algorithm with the computational complexity of O(N2) is developed for the proposed stochastic model. A case study using data on state highway programming in Indiana for period 1996-2006 is conducted to apply the methodology for project evaluation with input factors under certainty, risk, and uncertainty, and the stochastic model for project selection under budget uncertainty. Cross comparisons of project benefits estimated with and without uncertainty considerations are made. The overall benefits of projects selected using different tradeoff analysis methods in the stochastic model are compared. Furthermore, the respective project selection results are matched with the actual programming decisions and relatively high consistency rate is obtained. The new methodology and model can be adopted by state transportation agencies to improve the efficiency of highway investment decisions.

Program for the 7th National Asset Management Conference -- New Directions in Asset Management and Economic Analysis. This conference program includes sessions on important emerging issues in transportation asset management. Among them will be organizational leadership, management systems, optimization, and training and education. The conference features three thematic tracks and four special topic areas. The following are the three thematic tracks: •Integration of Maintenance and Operations into Transportation Asset Management,•Putting Economics into Practice, and •Transportation Asset Management in the Ports and Harbors Community.

This report discusses the surface transportation system in the United States. It argues that surface transportation is at a crossroads. Its bridges, highways and public transit systems are aging and deteriorating. Deaths from traffic accidents are continuing. Traffic congestion causes traffic delays in cities and rural areas alike. The country does not invest enough in all modes of transportation - including railroads, bus travel, water transportation, and automobile travel - to meet future demand. The nation's economic leadership in the world will not be forceful enough if freight transportation is not reliable or efficient. Transportation decisions are politically based, which can get in the way of effective decision making. The report discusses the investments necessary to make the nation's transportation system more effective and efficient, and thus keep the United States' role as a world leader. Transportation investments are crucial to highways, public transit, passenger railroads and freight railroads.