Governing issues and alternate resolutions for a highway transportation agency's transition to asset management

Abstract

Whether the increasingly poor performance of transportation infrastructure, the budget shortfalls many owners are facing, or the increased demand for more accountability are considered, it is clear that a revolution related to the management of transportation infrastructure is long overdue. There is a broad consensus that this revolution will take shape through adapting and transitioning to the paradigm of asset management (AM). This paper firstly reviews the concept of AM applied to transportation infrastructure, identifies key attributes, and provides a brief overview of the on-going and planned transition to AM by two transportation agencies. Secondly, this paper provides an overview of the related paradigms of performance-based engineering, lifecycle cost analysis, and structural health monitoring, and their role within an integrated AM system. Finally, this paper identifies and discusses relevant issues that transportation infrastructure owners face when they embark on a transition to AM, and proposes an outline for a roadmap to guide this transition.

Keywords:

• Asset management
• Performance-based engineering
• Lifecycle cost analysis
• Structural health monitoring

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge Mr S. Christie and Mr L. Savant of the PennDOT, Mr K. Hidesada of the HEC, and Dr H. Ghasemi and Dr F. Jalinoos of the FHWA for their invaluable advice and guidance. In addition, the authors remain indebted to Mr A. Biehler and Mr G. Hoffmann of the PennDOT, as well as Dr S. Chase of the FHWA, for their invaluable guidance on infrastructure research for maximum impact and pay-off for society.