Conditions and Performance
Chapter Listing
Conditions and
Performance Home Page
Introduction
Current Practice
Assessment of Current Practices
Improving the Process
Strategies for Implementation
Conclusion
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Assessment of Current Practices (How Is It Working?)
During the decades of the 1960s, 1970s, and even into the 1980s, transportation preservation
projects were selected and developed without the benefit of today's vast technology expansion and
the information resources made possible by the technical revolution in computers, automated
data collection, testing equipment, design procedures, analytical tools, and so forth. Investment
decisions were project driven, and asset preservation and upgrading were frequently by-products of
facility expansion and new construction. Over the past two decades, progress in the planning
and programming arena of system preservation, upgrading, and operation has been considerable,
with asset management becoming a more important element in the State's overarching policies
and transportation plans.
Today, most State transportation plans include more explicit policies and goals relative to
asset management. However, the link between the transportation plan and actual programming
and resource allocation decisions may be tenuous if state-of-the-art engineering, economic and
business practices are not in place. The policies and objectives regarding Asset Management and
investment are intended to guide project selection and development. In the past, transportation investment
and maintenance decisions within and among asset classes tended to reflect tradition, intuition,
personal experience, resource availability, and political considerations, with systematic application of
objective analytical techniques applied to a lesser degree because of lack of availability. Further, success
was often measured in terms of controlling backlogs, not in optimizing system performance,
maximizing return-on-investment, or minimizing user impacts. Currently more States are developing
performance measures and targets to guide the overall decision-making process.
Achieving the situation where programs and projects reflect predetermined goals and policies
is difficult for a number of reasons. First, available analytical tools are subject to technical
constraints related to data inputs, assumptions and theoretical understanding. Second, practical realities related
to institutional considerations, social objectives, and political goals may circumvent the process.
And, third the planning, programming, and project development process in many States must deal
with antiquated data systems, disparate management systems (such as for pavements and bridges),
and limited communication channels, especially along horizontal lines.
Technical Considerations
Although management systems, such as pavement and bridge systems, have been under
development for many years and these systems have inherent investment analysis capabilities, few States
use economic efficiency criteria to assess the relative merits of overarching alternative
investment strategies within all asset classes, e.g., one highway facility versus another based on relative costs
and benefits.
Most States limit application of their management systems to monitoring conditions and then
plan and program their projects on a "worst first" basis. Existing management systems typically function
at the operations level and focus on one particular asset. The current approach to asset management
in general and resource allocation and investment analysis, in particular, is tactical rather than strategic.
Another technical issue facing State DOTs is the requirement for appropriately trained analysts
with the ability to translate the results of complex analytical processes into relevant conclusions that can
be readily understood by the lay person. Furthermore, it is important for the analysts to have a
full understanding of the important concepts and techniques. States face some difficulty in finding
and retaining staff with these capabilities due to the personnel situation described earlier.
Practical Realities
Beyond the technical hurdles, State practitioners are faced with a host of practical realities
that confound objective, analytically based decisions. Institutional considerations, social objectives
and political goals have the potential to dominate the resource allocation and project selection process.
Examples of institutional considerations include the legislative earmarking of Federal and
State funds. In addition, State budgets generally cover time horizons of 1 to 2 years. Therefore,
committing available funds over the long-term is difficult. The short budget cycle, combined with uncertain
future funding levels, creates pressure to select the alternative with the lowest initial cost, regardless of
total life-cycle cost and return-on-investment. In other words, the cost-effective solution may not be
the most politically practical solution.
A further complication arises from the competition between political objectives and the
technical decision-making process. For example, elected and appointed officials may find a strictly
long-term perspective demanded by the analytical approach to be untenable. In addition, the public
often measures the success of such officials by their ability to advance specific projects and services.
As such, decisionmakers may prefer a process that will accommodate individual efforts, as opposed to
a technical approach that does not specifically reflect such efforts. Long-term cost-effective
solutions therefore may not be the most attractive because of competing policy objectives.
Integration
In many of the State DOTs, communication across asset classes (horizontal) and from the
day-to-day manager to the highest executive (vertical) has historically been limited. This situation inhibits
a systems approach to managing assets. States that have established management systems have done
so by focusing on individual asset classes. The result has been so called "stovepipe" operations
with limited horizontal coordination. For instance, bridge management systems were developed by
bridge engineers and pavement management systems were produced by pavement engineers. Typically,
there is little, if any, data exchange between systems. Furthermore, there is little consistency with respect
to investment decision procedures. As a result, these systems are not able to evaluate trade-offs
between various classes of assets, for example, highways versus bridges.
Complicating coordination across asset classes is the typical State DOT's organizational
structure. Many State DOTs experienced most of their growth and development during the Interstate
Highway construction years. As a result, most of these organizations have budgets, staffs, and other
internal resources that support the requirements of a highway construction program and are not
necessarily geared to highway preservation and modal system efficiencies.
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