This article defines Transportation Asset Management (TAM) as a systematic process of operating, maintaining, and upgrading physical assets cost-effectively. TAM combines engineering and mathematical analyses with sound business practice and economic theory. State efforts to adopt TAM include Michigan’s TAM Council and Indiana’s Highway Asset Management System software program. This article also describes research initiatives sponsored by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program, the Midwest Regional University Transportation Center, and private sector firms. Finally, this article summarizes the main articles in this focus issue.
For more than 30 years, the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) has developed methodologies and appropriate performance measures for estimating congestion performance and communicating them to technical and nontechnical audiences. TTI's Urban Mobility Report (UMR) has historically focused on passenger car congestion (i.e., congestion caused by the average commuter). However, roadway traffic congestion certainly affects both commuters and goods movement. With the documented growth of freight shipments and value, particularly in trucking, researchers developed and applied a methodology to include in UMR the truck freight commodity value that is affected by congestion in urban areas. The methodology uses data from FHWA's Freight Analysis Framework (FAF) and Highway Performance Monitoring System (HPMS). Commodity values supplied by the FAF are integrated into truck vehicle miles of travel calculated from the HPMS roadway inventory. Researchers estimated that $7 trillion worth of commodities were trucked on America's urban streets and highways during 2010. At the urban-area level, the results of the truck value measure appear to be intuitive, as bigger cities consume more goods and the greater consumption means a higher value of freight movement. The addition of a truck value to the UMR provides another dimension to inform policy makers and decision makers about the congestion problem. This addition also serves to inform trucking stakeholders with an estimate of the amount of truck value that is affected by congestion. Researchers will continue to include the truck freight value performance measure in subsequent releases of the UMR.
Managers of low-volume roads face numerous challenges, including budgeting, maintenance decision making, and developing best practices. States such as Wisconsin have recently taken a proactive approach in assisting local officials in their roadway asset management activities. Aspects of the Wisconsin Information System for Local Roads (WISLR) that benefit local road managers by enhancing their asset management capabilities are discussed. Also offered are suggestions for future work to enhance roadway management tools for low-volume roads. WISLR originated with a Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) effort to create a web-based geographic information system (GIS) that would provide both the state agency and the 1,922 local units of government with accurate tracking of roadway mileage and pavement conditions for the more than 100,000 mi of roads and streets under local government control. The sizes of local road systems vary widely by municipality, from less than 9 mi to more than 600 mi of roadway. Many of these roads fall into the low-volume category, particularly in the smaller jurisdictions. WisDOT hoped to provide municipalities with a powerful tool to track roadway mileage and conditions, as well as to aid in system management decisions. WISLR offers a unique opportunity for local governments to capitalize on the powerful tools made available by this application. WISLR combines GIS technology with database application tools based on the Pavement Surface Evaluation Rating system, allowing municipalities to perform long-range planning.
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