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Articles and Publications
General Asset Management Publications
Asset Management Overview
The Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA's) Office of Asset Management is pleased to present this Asset Management Overview. When the Office was created during the 1999 FHWA reorganization effort, one of the most frequently asked questions from individuals within FHWA and outside the agency was "What is asset management?" Consequently, the Office published the Asset Management Primer to advance the understanding of this important concept within the transportation community. Since the Primer was published, a significant amount of activity has taken place as organizations have begun implementing the concepts of asset management. This Overview identifies next steps, challenges, and strategies in implementing a Transportation Asset Management program. Asset Management: Preserving a $1 Trillion Investment
With the construction of the Nation's Interstate highway system virtually complete, State and Federal highway agencies are shifting their attention to preserving and operating this $1 trillion investment in highways and bridges. This change in focus reflects a new concept known as asset management. The asset management approach emphasizes the preservation, upgrading, and timely replacement of highway assets through cost-effective planning and resource allocation decisions. Asset Management Primer (pdf, 0.9 mb)
This primer was developed to answer the question, "What is asset management?" Those interested in learning more about asset management will gain an understanding and appreciation of this expanded and important concept. FHWA Asset Management Position Paper
The concept of asset management that has emerged is very broad and represents a set of business principles for making more effective resource allocation decisions. While much of the early application of asset management principles focused on infrastructure preservation activities, the principles apply equally to all functions and the entire life cycle of decision-making from defining policy objectives to planning, programming, budgeting, program and project development and design, operations, construction, maintenance, and system monitoring FHWA Creates an Office of Asset Management
Author: Madeleine Bloom, director of the Office of Asset Management. Published in Nov./Dec. 1999 Public Roads. Integrating Asset Management into the Metropolitan Planning Process: A Peer Exchange This report summarizes the proceedings of Integrating Asset Management into the Metropolitan Planning Process, a peer exchange organized by the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) Office of Asset Management and Office of Planning. It was held in Traverse City, Michigan on July 18-19, 2006. The goal of the peer exchange was to bring representatives from state departments of transportation (DOTs) together with representatives of metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to discuss the use of Asset Management techniques in the metropolitan planning process. Participants were chosen to ensure a diverse group, with representatives for all parts of the country as well as from jurisdictions of various sizes. In addition, participants were chosen to bring together representatives with a range of experience in Asset Management. Office of Asset Management Research and Development Activities
A summary of existing and planned Research and Development (R&D) activities by the Office of Asset Management, organized by subject area Relationships Between Asset Management and Travel Demand: Findings and Recommendations from Four State DOT Site Visits
For more than 80 years, growth in highway travel in the United States has exceeded the growth of the public roadway network. Over time, this divergence has resulted in increasing traffic congestion, travel time delays, and infrastructure deterioration, which have in turn generated a range of responses by both providers and users of the nation's highways. Despite these efforts, the nation's motorists and the trucking industry continue to experience ongoing reductions in roadway performance, increasing travel times, and lost productivity. In response, state highway departments (departments of transportation), county governments, and local agencies continually seek new ways to address ongoing growth in highway travel demand. The Right Road at the Right Time: Video Offers Keys to Preventive Maintenance Success
For highway agencies, times are changing. "It's no longer about constructing roads," says Jim Sorenson of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). "It's about preserving and maintaining the existing roads." And for an increasing number of States, preserving those roads means using preventive maintenance techniques. Instead of waiting until a road has significantly deteriorated before rehabilitating it, preventive maintenance involves applying carefully timed, cost-effective treatments to roads experiencing only light to moderate distress. These treatments help retard pavement deterioration, improve the function/condition of the highway system, and can extend the life of a structurally sound pavement by 5 to 10 years. Transportation Asset Management
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) began a national initiative in 1995 to create a higher awareness of Asset Management - the cost-effective operation, maintenance, and preservation of transportation systems - and to explain its concepts, importance, and benefits. During this period, we have made noteworthy strides to define and document Asset Management principles and how they relate to transportation agencies. This is an overview of asset management and describes some of the activities underway by AASHTO and FHWA to bring Asset Management to the transportation community. Transportation Asset Management In Australia, Canada, England, and New Zealand
The purpose of this scan was to investigate asset management experience, techniques, and processes in the world. Lessons from this experience could help the United States better understand how asset management applications can be used to enhance the effectiveness of decisionmaking and infrastructure management in Federal, State, and local transportation agencies. The United States faces a significant infrastructure preservation and capital replacement challenge. The lessons learned from this scan could provide important indications of how those who have been practicing effective asset management for some time have approached the challenge from both an institutional and technical point of view. (PDF Version, 9 mb) U. S. Domestic Scan Program: Best Practices in Transportation Asset Management (.pdf, 1.4 mb)
The purpose of this scan was to identify best case examples of the application of asset management principles and practice in U.S. transportation agencies. The scan was sponsored by American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), and the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP). The scan participants included FHWA officials, representatives from state transportation agencies in Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, and Vermont, a university professor in transportation engineering and planning, and a consultant support staff.
Economic Investment
Pavement Preservation
Pavement Management Systems Peer Exchange Program Report
The funding situation for transportation agencies is not expected to improve in the next several years, forcing agencies to clearly identify investment priorities. As a result, many transportation agencies have instated or are considering asset management as a strategic approach for managing their highway infrastructure. Some of these agencies are taking actions that are directly related to asset management principles, such as shifting funds away from large expansion projects and focusing available funding on the preservation of existing assets. The implementation of costeffective strategies, such as the use of preventive maintenance treatments on roads and highways in good condition, are becoming increasingly important to make the best use of the available funds by slowing down the rate of pavement deterioration and postponing the need for more costly improvements. Insights into Pavement Preservation: A Compendium (pdf, 894 kb)
Reprints from Focus, Public Roads, and R&T Transporter.
This compendium provides a short, nontechnical survey of recent articles on pavement preservation for use by members of the highway community - as well as the general public - who have an interest in this important topic, but not necessarily a technician's background. The Federal Highway Administration published this compendium as part of its mission to provide tools and concepts useful to the skilled hands and informed judgments that maintain and preserve our National Highway System. Pavement Preservation Checklist Series This checklist is one of a series created to guide State and local highway maintenance and inspection staff in the use of innovative pavement preventive maintenance processes. The series is provided through the joint efforts of the Pavement Preservation Program of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the Foundation for Pavement Preservation (FP2) Pavement Preservation Compendium The articles and other reference material in this Compendium describe the many facets of pavement preservation activities underway in the United States today, from California to Michigan to North Carolina. As we look forward to advancing pavement preservation research, skills, and knowledge, they provide an introduction to what our State and local partners are already accomplishing, and a roadmap to our future. A Quick Check of Your Highway Network Health Historically, many highway agency managers and administrators have tended to view their highway systems as simply a collection of projects. By viewing the network in this manner, there is a certain comfort derived from the ability to match pavement actions with their physical/functional needs. However, by only focusing on projects, opportunities for strategically managing entire road networks and asset needs are overlooked. Although the "bottom up" approach is analytically possible, managing networks this way can be a daunting prospect. Instead, road agency administrators have tackled the network problem from the "top down" by allocating budgets and resources based on historic estimates of need. Implicit in this approach is a belief that the allocated resources will be wisely used and will prove adequate to achieve desirable network service levels.
By using a quick checkup tool, road agency managers and administrators can assess the needs of their network and other highway assets and determine the adequacy of their resource allocation effort. A quick checkup is readily available and can be usefully applied with minimum calculations. Use of PMS Data for Performance Monitoring with Superpave as an Example
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. In particular, Superpave is used as an ideal example and is carefully examined. This study is not big enough or long enough to evaluate or validate Superpave per se. Rather we examine the process and obtain consensus on what data states would need to collect to adequately evaluate Superpave. Similar studies could be done for any other new design or materials concept such as the 2002 Pavement Design Guide. No evaluation or judgment is made about Superpave, rather the concepts and details of using pavement management and related data are clearly illustrated.
Pavement Preservation: A Road Map to the Future (pdf, 888 kb)
A summary of a joint industry/agency workshop held October 26-28,1998, in Kansas City, MO. The workshop provided an opportunity to examine and discuss where the Nation stands on pavement preservation and where we want to be by the year 2005 with regard to roadway safety, highway customer satisfaction, and effective agency pavement strategies. Includes recommendations, desired outcomes, and actions developed with the objectives of improving pavement condition, reducing work zone accident rates, and implementing effective life-cycle costs analysis (LOCA) for pavement decision processes. Pavement Preservation Fact Sheet (pdf, 88 kb)
A summary of work by FHWA, States, and industry to promote a better understanding of preventive maintenance techniques and concepts and to speed their application to the Nation's highway transportation system.
Pavement Smoothness
Structures
Tunnels
Related Publications
AASHTO-AGC-ARTBA Joint Committee Subcommittee on New Highway Materials and Technologies Summary Report 2004
The subcommittee through the various task forces provides the liaison between industry and the highway program for the development of new materials and technologies to meet the highway program needs, through the testing grounds of the State highway departments, and provides industry with identification and need for the development of new materials and technologies to meet the needs of the highway organizations. Ground Penetrating Radar for Measuring Pavement Layer Thickness brochure (pdf, 546 kb)
Using ground penetrating radar (GPR), pavement management engineers can survey subsurface conditions at a small fraction of the cost of conventional core sampling and gather data for network-level pavement management. Highway Economic Requirements System for State Use
HERS-ST is an engineering/economic analysis (EEA) tool that uses engineering standards to identify highway deficiencies, and then applies economic criteria to select the most cost-effective mix of improvements for system-wide implementation. HERS-ST is designed to evaluate the implications of alternative programs and policies on the conditions, performance, and user cost levels associated with highway systems. The model will provide cost estimates for achieving economically optimal program structures, as well as predict system condition and user cost levels resulting from a given level of investment. Meeting Customers' Needs Fact Sheet (pdf, 53 kb)
To preserve and enhance the Nation's highway network and meet the challenges of continued travel growth, FHWA has developed a new program called "Optimizing Highway Performance: Meeting the Customers' Needs." The program is designed to facilitate application of the most advanced technologies and administrative methods to highway construction and maintenance operations.
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