The Georgia Experience

Agency Facts

4. Where Is Georgia Today?

GDOT is continuing to refine its LCCA process. This includes accounting for risk by developing procedures for a probabilistic analysis, where a range of possible inputs can be evaluated.

In 2006 GDOT's Office of Transportation Data and Office of Materials and Research formed an asset management task group composed of senior managers from the various offices. This task group will bring asset management to higher levels of the organization.

It is also a desire of GDOT to better coordinate the timing of the LCCA in the project development process, as the LCCA now takes place after preliminary plans are complete. Scheduling it to occur during the concept stage of the project development process would increase opportunities for recommendations to be incorporated. Earlier consideration of the LCCA results would help GDOT meet its primary goal of delivering Georgia's transportation program.

Figure 5: Project Development Framework.

In addition, after a meeting in May 2006 with FHWA staff regarding possible enhancements to RealCost, GDOT expressed interest in using RealCost as their standard LCCA tool once enhancements are in place. The reasons are twofold: 1) when the enhancements are complete, RealCost will be able to compare more than two alternatives, and 2) GDOT is concerned about having to continually train new staff on its customized software. With FHWA's On-site RealCost Implementation Course and the National Highway Institute's (NHI) new instructor-led distance learning course, RealCost has become an attractive option for GDOT. As Nathaniel Coley of FHWA's Office of Asset Management states, "The distance learning course is a viable option for agencies with limited training and travel budgets to provide a foundation in LCCA to their engineers."