Document Library

The objective of this project is to develop a simple and practical guidebook aimed at CEOs of state Departments of Transportation outlining ways to implement best practices for incorporating the use of performance measures into management practices and strategic planning.

This compendium comprises articles and other reference materials that detail the facets of the pavement preservation process, and pavement management activities underway in the United States.

This is the fifth in a series of combined documents prepared by the U.S. Department of Transportation to satisfy requirements for reports to Congress on the condition, performance, and future capital investment requirements of the Nation's highway and transit systems. This report incorporates highway and bridge information required by Section 502(g) of Title 23, United States Code (U.S.C.), as well as transit system information required by Section 308(e) of Title 49, U.S.C. Beginning in 1993, the Department combined two existing report series that covered highways and transit separately to form this report series. This report draws primarily on 2000 data. This document is intended to provide Congress and other decision makers with an objective appraisal of highway, bridge and transit physical conditions, operational performance, financing mechanisms and future investment requirements. This report offers a comprehensive, factual background to support the development and evaluation of legislative, program, and budget options at all levels of government. It also serves as a primary source of information for national and international news media, transportation associations, and industry. This report consolidates conditions, performance, and finance data provided by States, local governments, and mass transit operators, to provide a national level summary. Some of the underlying data are available through the Department's regular statistical publications. The future investment requirements analyses are developed specifically for this report and provide national level projections only. The report begins with an Executive Summary section that highlights the key findings in each chapter. This section is also distributed as a separate stand-alone summary document. The main body of the report is organized into five major sections: (I) Description of Current System (Chapters 1 through 6); (II) Investment/Performance Analyses (Chapters 7 through 10); (III) Federal Bridge Program/Status of the Nation's Bridges (Chapter 11); (IV) Special Topics (Chapters 12 through 22); and (V) Supplemental Analyses of System Components (Chapters 23 through 27). The report also contains three technical appendices that describe the investment/performance methodologies used in the report for highways, bridges, and transit.

This report explains why road network asset managers are concerned with understanding and quantifying the remaining life of key components of road infrastructure assets, especially road pavements and bridges. The issues in estimating remaining life are reviewed. Current practices of the major road authorities in Australia and New Zealand in estimating remaining life of road pavements and bridges are discussed. Common terms such as design life, design period, useful life, economic life, functional life, and financial life are discussed. The report outlines the experience of the Roads and Traffic Authority of NSW in estimating the life of rigid pavements, and contains two case studies. University of Texas research findings on estimation of the remaining life of continuously reinforced concrete pavements are summarised. For bridges, this report discusses deterioration, highlights the need for standardisation in the approach to recording condition and maintenance history, and summarises recent bridge management initiatives by VicRoads. (a)

Article in the latest edition of the "Transporter" about the new Transportation Asset Management Course available from NHI.

This report presents the results of a literature review of current practice in identifying, quantifying and managing risks and predicting impacts as part of the planning and assessment process for infrastructure investment proposals. In assessing proposals for investment in infrastructure, it is necessary to consider social, cultural and environmental risks and impacts to the overall community, as well as financial risks to the investor.

This Guide will help transportation agency executives or managers to examine, strategically and systematically, how investment decisions affecting transportation infrastructure are made, and to identify areas and priorities for possible improvement through initial and periodic self-assessment and benchmarking. It provides ideas, methods, and examples to accomplish more effective resource allocation and utilization. It does all of this by developing and applying the principles and practices of what is referred to as "transportation asset management." The Guide is structured in nine chapters. Chapters 1 and 2 define transportation asset management, provide background information on past work in the field, and develop a framework for asset management of transportation infrastructure that is appropriate to U.S. departments of transportation. Chapter 3 contains the self-assessment exercise that agencies can apply to identifying areas where asset management improvement may be helpful. Chapter 4 describes how to develop an asset management implementation strategy and plan, based on the results of the self-assessment above. It stresses that the role of the Guide is to help an agency shape its own asset management implementation plan, tailoring and customizing the principles and techniques in the Guide to its particular situation, capabilities, and expectations. Chapters 5 through 8 describe asset management concepts, principles, and techniques that apply to several agency functions in managing transportation infrastructure and decisions in resource allocation and utilization: Policy formulation; Planning and priority programming; Program delivery; and Information and analytic support, including the role of information technology, transportation system performance monitoring and feedback, and communication and reporting. Chapter 9 concludes the Guide with a discussion of implementation issues.

This Guide helps you to examine, strategically and systematically, how investment decisions affecting your transportation infrastructure are made. It helps you to identify areas and priorities for possible improvement. It provides ideas, methods, and examples to accomplish more effective resource allocation and utilization. It does all of this by developing and applying the principles and practices of what is referred to as “transportation asset management.”

The objective of this project was to examine how existing pavement management data and materials related data in various state DOTs can be used to evaluate the performance of new materials and concepts and to validate new design methods. Superpave was used as an example in this study. The project also studied the data collected by each agency to determine what was collected on a common basis, and how the data and data analysis can be better shared among agencies.

The sixth installment in the pavement preservation checklist series, focusing on joint sealing Portland cement concrete pavements.

The fifth installment in the pavement preservation checklist series, focusing on the procedure for microsurfacing application.

The fourth installment in the pavement preservation checklist series, focusing on the procedure for fog seal application.