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Asset Management Overview
Asset management is an emerging concept in the transportation industry.
The idea is to manage our infrastructure (assets) by focusing on
performance. Asset management takes a “strategic” approach to
transportation, one that looks at the network as a whole, rather than as
series of individual projects in distinct jurisdictions. The concept is
based on the principles of stewardship of public resources,
accountability to users of the system, and continuous improvement.
Asset management requires a solid foundation of data, which will allow
transportation professionals to monitor the transportation system and
plan how to optimize the preservation, improvement and timely
replacement of assets. Instead of simply accounting for existing
infrastructure, asset management strives to ensure the proper use and
performance of those assets, a process that involves the continuous
assessment of conditions and evaluation of trade-offs between different
actions.
The major elements of an Asset Management process are:
• Establishing goals
and objectives through development of a strategic plan,
• Collecting data to determine current pavement and bridge conditions,
• Using management systems to control the various processes,
• Identifying standards and benchmarks,
• Developing appropriate performance measures,
• Making decisions based on these results and developing an appropriate
program,
• Implementing the program, and
• Monitoring and reporting results of actions taken.
Asset Management in
Michigan
Public Act 499 of 2002 establishes a ten member
Transportation Asset Management Council. The Council is comprised
of members from the Michigan Department of Transportation, the County
Road Association of Michigan, the Michigan Municipal League, the
Michigan Association of Regions, the Michigan Association of Counties,
and the Michigan Townships Association. According to the Act, the
mission of the Council is to: “Advise the State Transportation
Commission on a statewide asset management strategy and the necessary
procedures and analytical tools to implement such a strategy on
Michigan’s highway system in a cost-effective, efficient manner.”
The law requires the council to set up a process for determining the
condition of Michigan’s highways and bridges and to develop a strategy
so that those assets are maintained, preserved and improved in an
efficient and cost-effective manner. The Asset Management Council will
initially develop a strategy for Michigan’s federal-aid eligible roads
and bridges. Once this process has been fully established for the
federal-aid eligible roads and bridges it is to be extended to all
public roads.
The Asset Management process is one of cooperation among the various
owners of the assets. The process began with a statewide Road Condition
Survey for federal-aid eligible roads and bridges. Using this data as a
basis, the Transportation Asset Management Council will identify
deficiencies and develop broad, network-level goals and objectives,
focusing on statewide targets for system condition. The individual road
agencies will continue to make project-level decisions and identify
which projects will be undertaken, hopefully addressing the identified
deficiencies in their project schedules.
An Annual Report detailing all road and bridge work performed by MDOT
and the local road agencies will be submitted to the State
Transportation Commission and the Legislature by May 2 of each year. The
Asset Management Council must also publish a Multi-Year Program
consisting of a list of all highway and bridge projects that are
anticipated to be constructed over a three-year period. This program
must be available by October 1 of each year.
The benefits of the Asset Management approach include:
• Taking a systematic approach to the entire network,
• Proactively managing rates of deterioration,
• Committing to do the right fix at the right time, and
• The ability to meet established network goals.
Federal Aid
Road Condition Survey
In
August of 2003, the first statewide survey of all federal-aid eligible
roads began. The purpose of this survey was to create a database of
uniform pavement condition ratings for use by the Transportation Asset
Management Council in its strategic planning efforts. This survey of
the federal-aid system has continued on a yearly basis. The survey is
undertaken by teams comprised of an MDOT representative, a
representative from the appropriate regional planning organization, and
a representative from the local road agency. Three data items are
collected: Surface type, number of lanes, and the PASER surface rating.
PASER Road
Rating System
The Pavement Surface and Evaluation Rating (PASER) system was developed by
the University of Wisconsin-Madison Transportation Information Center to
be used as the State of Wisconsin’s standard road rating system. PASER
is a “windshield” road rating system that uses a 1 to 10 rating scale,
with a value of 10 representing a new road and a value of 1 representing
a failed road. Condition ratings are assigned by monitoring the type and
amount of visual defects along a road segment while driving the segment.
The PASER system interprets these observations into a condition rating.
The State of Michigan Transportation Asset Management Council requested
that the information gathered in the federal aid road surveys be
reported using the following categories:
·
Roads
with PASER ratings of 8 - 10 require Routine Maintenance.
Routine maintenance is
the day-to-day maintenance activities that are scheduled, such as street
sweeping, drainage clearing, shoulder gravel grading, and sealing cracks
to prevent standing water and water penetration.
·
Roads
with PASER ratings of 5 - 7 require Capital Preventive Maintenance.
Capital
preventive maintenance is a planned set of cost effective treatments to
an existing roadway system and its appurtenances that preserves, retards
future deterioration and maintains or improves the functional condition
of the system without significantly increasing structural capacity. The
purpose of capital preventive maintenance fixes is to protect the
pavement structures, slow the rate of pavement deterioration and/or
correct pavement surface deficiencies. Surface treatments are targeted
at pavement surface defects primarily caused by the environment and by
pavement material deficiencies.
- Roads with PASER
ratings of 1- 4 require Structural Improvements.
This category
includes work identified as rehabilitation and reconstruction which
address the structural integrity of a road.
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