Transportation Asset Management from Plans to Practice TPF-5(303), May 2015

(2015) Transportation Asset Management from Plans to Practice TPF-5(303), May 2015. Transportation, Department of

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Abstract

Transportation asset management (TAM) in state departments of transportation (DOTs)—or in other transportation agencies as well—refers to a strategic and systematic process of operating, maintaining, and improving physical assets, with a focus on both engineering and economic analyses based on quality information. The goal of TAM is to identify a structured sequence of maintenance, preservation, repair, rehabilitation, and replacement actions that will achieve and sustain a desired state of good repair—at minimum practicable cost over the life of the assets. Formalized TAM began in the 1980s, when a few agencies used pavement and bridge management systems. The following decade saw the approval of federal transportation legislation—the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA)—for which six TAM systems were required. At this time, FHWA created the Office of Asset Management and AASHTO created the Subcommittee on Asset Management. Interest in TAM began to grow as agencies struggled with growing needs and limited resources. The 2000s brought a greater use of bridge and pavement management systems and greater use of TAM principles in everyday agency activities. Some states established policies that linked decisions to performance measures and good data; others implemented enterprise TAM software systems. In 2011, AASHTO published its Transportation Asset Management Guide: A Focus on Implementation, and in 2012, the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) passed with requirements that state DOTs develop risk-based TAM plans for pavements and bridges in the National Highway System (NHS). The number of states using TAM policies and procedures has grown steadily over the years, as has the interest in TAM by DOTs at meetings and conferences. When the AASHTO TAM Subcommittee was established in the early 2000s, many committees saw sparse meeting attendance—mostly just the committee members themselves. But once MAP-21 was passed, committee meeting rooms filled to capacity. The requirement to implement a formal TAM system captured the attention of state DOTs, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), transit agencies, and consultants.