E x E c u T i v E B r i E f 

Advancing a Transportation Asset 

Management Approach
C2 Executive Brief: Advancing a Transportation Asset Management Approach 
 

Note from the Director
 

Transportation Asset Management (TAM) has now become a way of doing business in state transportation 

agencies. Several agencies have successfully used TAM to address demands to operate sustainably, be 

transparent and demonstrate accountability. 

With aging infrastructure demands and declining purchasing power, transportation agencies are using TAM 

to balance business needs with engineering judgements and make data-driven trade-offs decisions. TAM is 

increasingly becoming the framework for agencies to make long-term strategic decisions to effectively manage 

transportation infrastructure assets and address public concerns about infrastructure health. 

This report highlights the essentials of asset management and is a brief intended for transportation agency 

executives who want to better understand how organizational change can be effected by utilizing TAM 

principles. This report describes principles that can help transportation agencies look at their competencies, 

address gaps and implement a framework to be strategic and address mission-critical transportation needs. 

It also includes experiences of peer agencies that have used TAM to address current and future transportation 

challenges and produce performance metrics to demonstrate successful results with available resources. 

J.B. “Butch” Wlaschin, P.E.
 

Director, Office of Asset Management
 

Executive Brief: Advancing a Transportation Asset Management Approach 
 
 

Table of Contents 

Summary ...................................................................... 1
 

Overview ....................................................................... 1
 

National Calls for Accountability and Performance ....................................... 2
 

Increasing Focus on Sustainability.................................................... 3
 

Seeing TAM in a New Light ....................................................... 3
 

Asset Management as an Organizing Framework......................................... 3
 

Essentials of Asset Management .................................................... 4
 

Changing Organizational Direction to Embrace TAM ..................................... 5
 

The Three Major Information Areas in Asset Management.................................. 6
 

Use of Metrics as the Guideposts for Long-term Health and Improvement ...................... 9
 

Implementing Transportation Asset Management ...................................... 10
 

Assessing where you are .......................................................... 10
 

Identifying Gaps ............................................................... 11
 

Setting Goals and Objectives ...................................................... 11
 

Developing a TAM Plan.......................................................... 11
 

Incorporating Risk Management.................................................... 11
 

Implementing the TAM Plan ...................................................... 12
 

Developing a Communication Plan ................................................. 12
 

Benchmarking Best Practices ...................................................... 12
 

Examples of Successful TAM Implementation ......................................... 13
 

Conclusions ................................................................... 14
 

Executive Brief: Advancing a Transportation Asset Management Approach 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Summary 

Transportation Asset Management is a “way of doing 

business.” All Departments of Transportation 

manage their assets. The question is, are they taking 

advantage of good Asset Management practices? 

Applying the Asset Management framework and 

decision-making process is a way to maximize 

investments for long-term sustainability, accountability and performance—the overriding demands 

that increasingly confront US transportation 

executives. Transportation Asset Management 

(TAM) provides a proven and reliable framework 

to address all three demands. 

This report distills and updates the findings of a 

larger report, Beyond the Short Term: Transportation 

Asset Management for Long Term Sustainability, 

Accountability and Performance. This summary 

report and the larger one (“Beyond the Short Term”) 

use case studies to demonstrate how US and international transportation agencies rely on TAM as a 

systematic framework for managing infrastructure. 

The report illustrates how agencies that have 

implemented TAM can take in stride these new 

demands for sustainability, accountability and 

performance. These agencies can rely on TAM 

to provide a framework to manage resources and 

preserve physical assets while minimizing their 

whole-life cost. It can also help them sustain the 

infrastructure for future users, produce performance 

metrics, and account for their investment decisions. 

This report is intended for executives who want to 

understand how to change their organizations to 

fully utilize TAM. It documents the use of strategic 

planning, organizational theory, change management and organizational communication to shift 

an agency from a short-term, worst-first approach 

to a long-term, cost effective, sustainable and 

accountable Asset Management approach. By 

doing so, Asset Management’s intrinsic benefits 

will contribute to sustainability, accountability 

and long-term performance. 

Overview 

Transportation agencies face the challenge of managing aging infrastructure that carries traffic volumes 

far beyond what it was designed to handle. US 

infrastructure continues to age as the “Baby Boom” 

bridges and pavements of the Interstate Highway era 

pass their 50th anniversaries. While transportation 

agencies are coping with aging infrastructure, their 

purchasing power has sharply declined. 

This summary report and the Beyond the Short Term 

report reevaluate and reappraise TAM in a new 

light. They review TAM from the perspective of 

current demands that transportation agencies 

operate sustainably, accountably and with a strong 

emphasis upon documenting and improving performance. These three issues have received considerable 

attention at national conferences and within discussions between transportation agency peers. 

The reports point out to transportation agency 

executives who may not have fully embraced TAM 

that they can rely on it as a ready framework to 

address these growing demands. Agency executives 

need to evaluate their decision making process and 

their organizational framework. The framework 

needs to clearly address the following five core 

questions, which constitute the foundation of 

Transportation Asset Management: 

1. What is the state of my assets? 

a. What do I own? 

b. Where is it? 

c. What condition is it in? 

d. What is its remaining useful life? 

e. What is its remaining economic value? 

Executive Brief: Advancing a Transportation Asset Management Approach 1 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. What is my required level of service? 

a.	 What is the demand for services by 

stakeholders? 

b. Are there regulatory requirements 

I must meet? 

c.	 What is my actual performance? 

3. Which assets are critical to sustained
 

performance?
 

a.	 How can it fail? How does it fail? 

b. What is the likelihood of failure? 

c.	 What does it cost to repair? 

d.	 What are the consequences of failure? 

e.	 How can I mitigate these failures? 

4. What are my best “Operations and 

Maintenance” and “Capital Improvement” 

investment strategies? 

a.	 What alternative management options 

exist? 

b. Which are the most feasible for my 

organization? 

5. What is my best long-term funding
 

strategy?
 

a.	 What revenues will I have? 

b. What is my investment gap or surplus 

to meet asset condition goals? 

c.	 What is my revenue gap to keep my 

asset within my risk tolerance level? 

d.	 What would be my optimum mix of: 

i. Preservation and Preventive Maintenance 

ii. Reactive Maintenance 

iii. Rehabilitation 

iv.	 Replacement 

e.	 If I cannot afford my optimum mix, what 

is the best mix of fixes I can afford? 

Agencies do not have to adopt three new systems 

or frameworks for asset sustainability, for providing 

accountability or for documenting performance. 

TAM provides a framework for all three, at least 

in regards to the management of transportation 

infrastructure. 

National Calls for Accountability and 

Performance 

While facing these challenges, transportation 

agencies increasingly face calls to demonstrate their 

effectiveness. The National Surface Transportation 

Policy and Revenue Study Commission issued a 

clarion call for performance accountability in the 

federal transportation programs. Senior members 

of Congress are examining how to tie federal 

transportation spending to state accountability and 

performance. The Government Accountability 

Office called for greater linkage between federal 

transportation expenditures and transportation 

agency results. The Federal Highway Administration 

(FHWA) is placing an increased focus on a performance-based federal transportation program. 

Discussions are underway on approaches to 

articulate national goals, performance measures and 

targets, and the role of states in addressing them. 

The American Association of State Highway and 

Transportation Officials (AASHTO) created a new 

Standing Committee on Performance Management 

(SCOPM) that is seeking consensus on common, 

nationwide performance metrics. It has conducted 

preliminary studies to identify common measures to 

evaluate the comparability of data reported by states 

and to measure performance among states in key 

areas. Also, FHWA has undertaken a study focused 

on assessment of infrastructure health with one 

of the objectives being identification of the best 

approaches to define pavement and bridge 

performance for the Interstate Highway System. 

The rising prominence of Performance Management 

raised the need for a clear definition of Performance 

Management and how it differed from Asset Management. In the summer of 2010 as the AASHTO 

Subcommittee on Asset Management Strategic Plan 

was being updated, AASHTO and FHWA collaborated on a statement of clarification about the two 

complementary disciplines. Though Asset Management and Performance Management have a common 

2 Executive Brief: Advancing a Transportation Asset Management Approach 
 

framework, Performance Management can be 

applied more broadly to include processes including 

highway operations, safety, construction activities or 

even customer satisfaction. Although the two often 

overlap, the delineation between them is marked by 

Asset Management’s focus on strategic approaches to 

manage and ensure long-term performance of physical 

assets as opposed to the performance of processes. 

Increasing Focus on Sustainability 

While these financial and infrastructure trends 

develop, the public is increasingly focused on 

sustainability. President Obama issued an executive 

order in October 2009 calling on federal agencies 

to embrace sustainability practices. Internationally, 

transportation agencies in Great Britain, Australia, 

and New Zealand consider the sustainability of 

their infrastructure to be a key measure of successful management of assets and an indicator of 

long-term asset performance. The concept of 

sustainability grew out of the environmental 

movement but has since spread to become a 

universal organizing principle. 

In transportation circles, sustainability has grown 

to include considerations of whether the quality 

of infrastructure will remain for future users, or are 

today’s users consuming more infrastructure than 

they are renewing. The taxpayers of the 1950s and 

1960s invested in a highway network that serves 

users today. As the structural integrity of bridges and 

pavements deteriorate, the costs to restore them to 

serviceable levels are passed on to future users. If 

infrastructure investment was sustainable, today’s 

users would be replacing the assets they consume and 

they would be leaving a legacy of good infrastructure 

for future users. 

Seeing TAM in a New Light 

As transportation agencies consider how to respond 

to these national calls for a legacy of good infrastructure for future users, the appeal of TAM becomes 

increasingly apparent. It has become increasingly 

clear to TAM practitioners that it provides a systematic, data-driven and continually improving framework for managing assets. In this maturation, Asset 

Management has come to closely resemble many 

other “quality systems” that major corporations use 

to meet customer goals, achieve performance targets 

and to continually improve their products. “Quality 

Systems” such as ISO, Six Sigma, the Balanced 

Scorecard, Baldrige, Total Quality Management and 

Performance Management all have elements which 

resemble Asset Management. 

Agencies that use Asset Management tend to 

become more strategic in managing infrastructure 

assets. They are very data-driven and work towards 

achieving defined long-term outcomes. Terry 

Gibson, from the North Carolina Department of 

Transportation, noted that “adopting TAM leads 

agencies to migrate to a more policy-based, resultfocused, data-driven organization, where producing 

performance metrics to demonstrate results is 

practically incidental”. The agency officials interviewed in the Beyond the Short Term case studies 

expressed little trepidation about producing performance metrics because their Asset Management 

frameworks produce metrics as a matter of course. 

Asset Management as an Organizing Framework 

Asset Management is a framework that helps an 

organization effectively manage its assets. TAM has 

sometimes been confused with the bridge management and pavement management computer systems. 

It needs to be stressed that Asset Management is 

not a computer program nor is it a rigid protocol. 

Rather, it is a framework for decision making that 

propels continuous improvement in infrastructure 

management within an organization. Just as some 

Fortune 500 companies rely on ISO or Six Sigma, an 

agency can rely on Asset Management to provide an 

organizing framework to communicate its approach 

to its workforce, to external stakeholders such as the 

public, legislators, commissions or the media, and its 

Executive Brief: Advancing a Transportation Asset Management Approach 3 
 

external partners such as consultants. As can be seen not only improve their management of infrastrucin the case studies and examples within Beyond the ture but also respond to larger, public concerns about 

Short Term, Asset Management can help agencies long-term transportation infrastructure health. 

Essentials of Asset Management 

The AASHTO Transportation Asset Management 

Guide—A Focus on Implementation defines Asset 

Management as a strategic and systematic process of 

operating, maintaining, upgrading, and expanding 

physical assets effectively throughout their lifecycle. 

It focuses on business and engineering practices for 

resource allocation and utilization, with the objective of better decision-making based upon quality 

information and well-defined objectives. Asset 

Management is a distinct way of doing business. 

It is more comprehensive than traditional 

approaches with a framework that focuses on quality 

data, economic and risk analysis, and development 

of financial and Asset Management plans. The Asset 

Management plans feed into priority setting and 

programming processes to generate a work program 

for delivery. 

Key elements within the definition include “strategic 

and systematic,” “throughout their lifecycle,” “quality 

information,” and “well-defined objectives.” These 

elements make Asset Management attractive to 

legislators and policy makers who are often pleased 

to find that a transportation agency is using a 

rational and comprehensive approach to managing 

infrastructure, not just for the short term, but also 

for the long term. Asset Management contradicts a 

common belief that most government agencies 

“muddle through” their decision-making process by 

making short-term, incremental decisions based on 

past practices and not upon rational, comprehensive 

and data-driven lifecycle processes. Agencies with 

more advanced asset management programs tend to 

operate rationally and comprehensively by starting 

with clear strategies for what infrastructure conditions they want to provide the public. They then use 

data analysis, and often computerized management 

systems, to conduct tradeoff scenarios to determine 

which mix of investments will provide the optimum 

system conditions for the longest period. As the 

definition notes, Asset Management involves business and engineering practices. It includes timely 

preservation and preventive maintenance, wellplanned rehabilitation and cost-effective replacement at the appropriate stages of an asset’s life. 

Asset Management capitalizes upon three key 

factors. First, pavements, bridges and maintenance 

appurtenances tend to degrade at predictable rates, 

so their future conditions can be predicted based 

upon asset condition history and known deterioration curves. Second, timely preservation, preventive 

and rehabilitative treatments at the right point of the 

deterioration curve can be very economical because 

they prevent the rapid degradation of assets that 

occurs once they reach a deteriorated state. Restoring severely degraded assets is more costly than 

preserving them in a sound state. Third, assets have 

significantly different values, such as high-volume 

pavements and bridges create more public value than 

do lightly traveled ones. By carefully assigning 

economic values to assets and by prioritizing the 

treatment of those which have the highest economic 

value and by setting appropriate treatment timings, 

transportation agencies can optimize scarce 

resources. This systematic optimization allows 

agencies to “get the biggest bang” for their scarce 

infrastructure resources and demonstrate that they 

are taking a rational and systematic approach to 

maximizing public resources. 

4 Executive Brief: Advancing a Transportation Asset Management Approach 
 

Asset Management coordinates multiple areas such 

as finance, policy, engineering, planning, design, 

project delivery, forecasting system conditions, 

customer demands, and information needs. It 

applies them to an implementable asset management plan that is supported by a financial plan. 

Asset Management is distinguished by being: 

Policy-driven—Resource allocation decisions 

are based on a well-defined set of policy goals 

and objectives. 

Performance-based—Policy objectives are translated into system performance measures that are used 

for both day-to-day and strategic management. 

Reliant on Analysis of Options and Tradeoffs— 

Decisions on how to allocate funds within and across 

different types of investments (e.g., preventive 

maintenance versus rehabilitation, pavements versus 

bridges) are based on an analysis of how different 

allocations will affect achievement of relevant 

policy objectives. 

Based on Quality Information—The merits 

of different options with respect to an agency’s 

policy goals are evaluated using credible and 

current data. 

Providing Accountability and Feedback—Performance results are monitored and evaluated for both 

efficiency and effectiveness. 

Financial Information—Financial information is 

compiled including the answers to questions such as, 

How much money do we have? How much money 

do we need to manage our assets so as to keep risks 

within acceptable levels? What are the current and 

future needs and trade-offs? How much will it cost 

in the future to maintain a newly built road? 

Continuously Improving—The performance 

feedback allows for continuous assessment of results 

and “institutional learning” of how to improve upon 

past performance. 

In short, Asset Management is a comprehensive, 

rational and systematic approach to managing 

pavements, bridges and other transportation assets. 

Asset Management does not require a new bureaucracy, rather it is a “way of doing business.” It brings a 

particular perspective to how an agency implements 

existing procedures, reaches decisions, and applies its 

information-technology capabilities. It suggests 

principles and techniques to apply in policymaking, 

planning, project selection, program tradeoffs, 

program delivery, data gathering, and management 

system applications. 

Changing Organizational Direction to Embrace TAM
 

In a fully coordinated Asset Management environment, both funds and activities are optimized. 

Preservation, preventive or reactive maintenance 

activities and schedules are coordinated during the 

assets’ lifecycle. Often such coordination does not 

occur naturally when an organization’s units may 

try to maximize their priorities at the expense of 

other organizational priorities. 

Asset Management “aligns the organizational 

arrows” and links the processes so that all business 

units within an agency operate in a coordinated 

fashion rather than independently. This could 

include shifting money and resources between asset 

classes or between activities in order to optimize 

overall performance. Resource allocation would be 

systematic and dynamic with resources shifted over 

the years. Such a coordination of people and 

Executive Brief: Advancing a Transportation Asset Management Approach 5 
 

 

 

 

 

processes requires addressing the following three 

major information areas: 

I. Organizational Directional Information; 

II. Organizational Competency Information; and 

III. Organizational Asset Data. 

The Three Major Information Areas in Asset 

Management 

I. Organizational Directional Information 

Organizational directional information seeks 

answers to an organization’s readiness and commitment to TAM. Is the organization’s commitment to 

Asset Management clear? Has the organization 

understood and bought in to the Asset Management 

approach? Is it cascading the approach actively 

throughout the organization? 

Role of Leadership in the Success of TAM 

Successful implementation of TAM may require 

making organizational changes and overcoming 

institutional inertia. This requires having an Asset 

Management champion at a high level of an organization. If the implementation of TAM is being 

driven by a Commission, Legislature or CEO, it 

probably has an automatic champion. If those 

conditions do not exist, a champion should be 

appointed and the higher in the organization, the 

better. This champion, in many instances, is supported by a broad-ranging committee representing 

all major departmental areas and can spread the 

advocacy widely across the organization. 

The Beyond the Short Term report provides recommendations and examples of Change Management, 

Organizational Theory and Organizational Communication for how to chart a new course for an organization that wants to adopt Asset Management. 

As many executives have found, coordinating 

disparate units within a large organization is a 

challenge in itself. In fact, making organizational 

change and addressing institutional inertia 

are amongst the top issues that change agents 

face when they attempt to institute improvements 

within a large agency. Tactics borrowed from 

Organizational Communication, Organizational 

Theory and Change Management, are manifested 

throughout the case studies of successful 

agencies represented in this report. By adopting 

these change-management tactics, an agency 

leader can increase the chances of success when 

deploying Asset Management principles in 

an agency. 

Making Organizational Change—For change to 

take place, it is important to understand why organizations do what they do and what it takes to get them 

to adopt new practices. The various complex interactions and cooperative functions that must occur across 

units in an Asset Management framework are not 

naturally occurring tendencies to officials whose 

normal incentives are to work within their own units. 

However, because division officials tend to be rational, they will cooperate and respond more positively 

to peer units when the organization creates greater 

incentives for them to do so. A leader is needed to 

create the environment that provides incentives to 

cooperate fully with other units in a long-term 

approach to Asset Management. It takes leadership to 

adopt new practices that are not common in the 

organization, get divisions and individual personnel 

to change past practices and make difficult financialtradeoff decisions. It is important for the various 

organizational units to understand the framework 

and decision making process, so they know and 

understand where they fit in. 

Overcoming Institutional Inertia—The case 

studies detailed in the larger Beyond the Short Term 

report illustrated that enhancing coordination and 

overcoming institutional inertia occurred through 

strong leadership and change management efforts. 

To change an organization, the leadership clearly 

stated the new direction and made a clear case for 

6 Executive Brief: Advancing a Transportation Asset Management Approach 
 

 

change. Probably the most important information 

needed to begin an Asset Management transition is 

the information that leadership provides about the 

“why, how and when” the institution is embracing 

Asset Management. 

Breaking Silos and Aligning Arrows to Work 

Towards One Common Goal—Organizational 

consensus and strong leadership are important 

because it takes nearly all the functions of a highway 

agency to effectively manage a pavement or a bridge 

through its lifecycle. Traditionally separate functions 

often become linked in an Asset Management 

process requiring cross-cutting coordination. The 

optimized structure for Asset Management would 

have all team members or divisions clearly understanding their role in the larger strategy that involves 

a life-cycle approach to sustaining transportation 

assets for the lowest possible cost. 

To take a simple example, a maintenance official will 

have no rational incentive to crack seal if the longterm performance of pavements is not part of his or 

her incentives or disincentives. In the short-term, 

crack sealing provides few benefits to the maintenance official who may be pre-occupied with snow 

removal, clearing incidents, repairing damaged 

guardrail or mowing. Furthermore, if the timing of 

crack sealing is critical, then the prescriptive timing 

of the crack sealing operations can become a new 

and unwelcome intrusion for the maintenance 

official. However, when a leader re-defines the units’ 

objectives and functions, the officials’ perspectives 

change. When the silos are broken and the role of 

maintenance is re-defined to contribute to long-term 

pavement performance through crack sealing or 

drainage maintenance, then maintenance behaviors 

change. Likewise, the rational behavior of the unit 

changes further when the leader creates new objectives for it to cooperate with other business units 

such as planning, design and construction. 

When an organization has clarity and buy-in on 

Asset Management, the role of each unit becomes 

clear. Collaboration across business units and clarity 

about the shared requirements also improves and all 

units function in a coordinated fashion to execute 

the thousands of individual steps required. 

In summary, the case study agencies used leadership, organizational structure and communication 

strategies to break down silos and enhance multidisciplinary cooperation. Successful tactics that are 

necessary to inculcate the cross-divisional cooperation include: 

•	The open and participatory conduct of economic tradeoff analyses and Asset Management 

planning that explain why it is in the larger 

organization’s interest to change funding patterns and practices to optimize the state’s 

highway assets; 

•	Frequent cross-divisional meetings that are 

chaired by the leader in which the cross-cutting 

cooperative activities are monitored for success, 

and impediments to their success are identified 

and addressed; 

•	The leader formally redefines the roles of units 

and individuals to require cross-divisional 

cooperation with one another; 

•	Shared institutional goals are set as common to 

all units, not only to some; 

•	The long-term accomplishment of Asset 

Management goals are broken down into 

meaningful, short-term activities that are 

clearly assigned to individuals and units. Those 

individuals and units are then held accountable 

for their accomplishment; 

•	Published reports, web pages, employee meetings 

and performance evaluations are used to 

communicate the department’s embrace of Asset 

Management as the process it uses to make 

infrastructure decisions. 

Executive Brief: Advancing a Transportation Asset Management Approach 7 
 

II. Organizational Competency 

Information 

The second major informational area is organizational competency information. Often a competency 

gap exists in an organization where Asset Management is not fully deployed. The leadership should 

consider developing a strategic plan or articulating a 

strategic vision that clearly states its long-term goals 

in support of Asset Management. This will involve 

assessing the size of this institutional competency 

gap and then devising an implementation plan that 

addresses the gap. The AASHTO Transportation 

Asset Management Guide—A Focus on Implementation discusses the self-assessment that will help 

agencies identify gaps in four key areas: Policy 

Guidance, Planning and Programming, Program 

Delivery, and Information and Analysis. 

Strategic Elements to Consider in Implementing 

Asset Management: 

•	“Preservation first” will be an organizational
 

priority;
 

•	The understanding that “worst first” treatment 

strategies are secondary to life-cycle-cost treatment 

strategies; 

•	Fact-based decision making will be the norm; 

•	“Continuous improvement” and “institutional 

knowledge management” will become part of 

the organizational culture; 

•	Short-term objectives and performance measures 

will be deployed as incremental steps toward 

achieving the long-term goals; 

•	Processes will track the steady progress toward 

implementing projects, maintenance treatments 

and preventive maintenance operations to 

attain the multi-year, long-term Asset Management goals; 

•	The workforce will be skilled in preventive-


maintenance treatments;
 

•	The department will be competent in scenario 

forecasting and have the ability to extrapolate 

different programmatic strategies and funding 

levels to determine their costs and benefits; 

•	The department will be competent in conducting benefit/cost analyses both at the program 

and project level. 

III. Organizational Asset Data 

The third major informational area is organizational 

asset data. This is the category of data that is most 

often recognized as essential to Asset Management. 

In fact, a common misconception about Asset 

Management is that it involves only computer 

programs such as Pavement or Bridge Management 

Systems dependent upon state-of-the-art enterprisewide computer systems. In fact, Asset Management 

requires all three types of information discussed in 

this report, but it is the Organizational Asset Data 

that is the most technical, detailed and expensive to 

acquire. It should be stressed that the acquisition of 

sufficient data and information for Asset Management is a continuous journey, not a point of departure. 

State-of-the-art systems are extremely desirable and 

they are powerful adjuncts to mature Asset Management processes. However, “begin with what you have 

and build upon it” is repeatedly stressed in guidance 

worldwide. Spread sheets, data bases and simple 

forecast curves are often the foundations of Asset 

Management information systems. 

Categories of Asset Data—The International 

Infrastructure Management Manual identifies the 

following categories of data that underlie sound 

Asset Management.1

 They include:

 1 International Infrastructure Management Manual, 

Version 3.0, 2006, page. 2.10 

8 Executive Brief: Advancing a Transportation Asset Management Approach 
 

Asset Inventories—These are the basic data regarding the bridges, pavements, maintenance appurtenances, traffic control devices, equipment and 

facilities that comprise the total inventory of the 

department’s physical assets. Generally, this information includes at least current condition and 

location information. 

Level of Service Data—Data as to the desired level 

of service compared to the existing level of service is 

clearly desirable in Asset Management information 

systems. 

Predicted Future Demand Data—This data is often 

volume-based such as traffic forecasts. This data is 

important for forecasting future demands, such as 

loadings on pavements or bridges. 

Remaining Useful Life Forecasts—If the preceding 

data exists, it generally is possible to forecast the 

remaining useful life of assets. The remaining useful 

life can predict failure scenarios and is fundamental 

to accurate forecasts of financial needs. 

Risk-Analysis Data—The risk-sensitivity of items 

such as fracture-critical bridges or traffic control 

devices is quite high. The desired asset data would 

include indicators of risk for structures or other asset 

items that have a high-degree of risk. 

Treatment-Sensitivity Data—The relative effects of 

various treatments upon the remaining service life of 

assets is important and desirable. These data preferably are derived from statistical analysis of a vast array 

of past examples but they can be generated by 

engineering judgment or “rules of thumb” in early 

Asset Management programs. 

Benefit/Cost Data—Closely related to treatmentsensitivity data are benefit/cost data that can be used 

to generalize the return-on-investment of various 

treatments or strategies. 

Fiscal Forecasts—Forecasts of predicted revenue 

based upon likely economic and political scenarios 

are necessary to evaluate potential investment 

options. 

Use of Metrics as the Guideposts for Long-term 

Health and Improvement 

With the increased focus on Performance Management, there are significant nuances to addressing 

highway assets over the long-term. Care needs to be 

taken as to which performance targets and strategies 

to adopt to ensure the long-term performance and 

sustainability of assets. 

One of the common concerns about Performance 

Management is that it can encourage short-term 

thinking. Managers face pressure to achieve shortterm metrics and therefore have little incentive for 

long-term investment or strategies. In Asset Management, the agency’s physical assets are managed 

cost-effectively for the highest performance over their 

multi-decade lifecycle. In an Asset Management 

framework, a manager would be encouraged to 

consider accepting lower network pavement conditions today by reducing the miles of “worst-first” 

pavements treated. By adopting a more sophisticated 

pavement management approach, the program 

would include more preventive maintenance, preservation, pavement rehabilitation or pavement replacements that provide longer-term benefits. 

Most organizations that have sustained long-term 

performance devise short-term objectives and 

performance measures that are deployed as incremental steps toward meeting the long-term goals. 

Failure to achieve the short-term performance 

measures triggers assessment or “learning” as to 

what needs to change in order to achieve the 

desired outcome. 

If an agency lacks clear performance measures and 

a process to track them, it probably lacks a critical 

element of Asset Management. Steady progress 

toward preservation and preventive maintenance 

Executive Brief: Advancing a Transportation Asset Management Approach 9 
 

 

operations are essential if the organization is to attain 

its multi-year, long-term Asset Management goals. 

The Beyond the Short Report identified Asset 

Management performance measures from Australia 

and the United States that reinforce sound engineering and sound Asset Management practices. 

For instance, a reliance on short-term asset condition metrics can reinforce a “worst-first” mindset. 

Performance metrics that address strategic preservation and preventive maintenance reinforce the 

implementation of sound and sustainable longterm Asset Management strategies. 

The Australian states of Queensland, New South 

Wales and Victoria have been the subject of several 

international case studies of sound practices in both 

measuring performance and in managing highway 

assets. The transportation agencies in these states 

widely use performance metrics to illustrate their 

responsibility and accountability in managing their 

highway networks. They select their performance 

metrics from their Asset Management analyses to 

ensure that what they measure will lead to the 

responsible management of the highway network. 

For instance, they measure activities such as their 

achievement of rational preventive maintenance 

programs or their delivery of well-planned pavement 

rehabilitation. By measuring preventive maintenance 

and pavement rehabilitation programs, they are 

measuring activities that will sustain their highway 

systems over time, not just in the short term. In fact, 

these agencies could not have a responsible performance measurement system if they did not first have a 

responsible Asset Management system that identified 

the strategies and treatments that will sustain their 

networks into the future. 

Implementing Transportation Asset Management
 

Because Asset Management takes a rational and 

comprehensive approach, it is only logical to proceed 

with a rational and comprehensive effort to implement it within an organization. The AASHTO 

Transportation Asset Management Guide—A Focus 

on Implementation recommends a 14-step process to 

implementing TAM. These are broadly covered in 

the following: 

•	Assessing where you are; 

•	Identifying gaps; 

•	Setting goals and objectives; 

•	Developing a TAM Plan; 

•	Implementing the TAM Plan; 

•	Communicating the TAM Plan; 

•	Learning from peer exchanges and best practices. 

Assessing Where You Are 

Beginning the process of implementing Asset 

Management, or evaluating the success of existing 

efforts can start with a self-assessment. Both volumes 

of the AASHTO Asset Management guide include 

a self-assessment instrument that allows an agency to 

determine where it stands. Agencies typically administer the self-assessment to a wide array of personnel 

to gather perspectives from across the agency. The 

self-assessment covers four broad areas including 

Policy Goals and Objectives, Planning and Programming, Program Delivery, and Information and 

Analysis. The results allow an organization to 

identify its strengths and weaknesses from broad 

areas such as goals to very specific ones such as the 

type of data its users want, but lack. The self-assessment repeatedly has assisted agencies with the next 

key step, the identification of gaps. 

10 Executive Brief: Advancing a Transportation Asset Management Approach 
 

Identifying Gaps 

Each agency is unique and each is likely to have a 

unique set of needs it will identify to fulfill its Asset 

Management aspirations. The value of the selfassessment lies in combining a standardized, 

idealized template for Asset Management with 

internally generated assessments for how to best 

achieve the agency’s Asset Management aspirations. 

The self-assessment asks a series of questions that 

are relevant to a generalized Asset Management 

template. Because the answers are generated by the 

agency stakeholders, they provide a personalized 

set of answers that are relevant to the individual 

organization. By administering the self-assessment 

to policy makers such as commissioners, it can 

provide the agency with a clear understanding of 

how to address policy makers’ concerns about the 

organization’s Asset Management practices. This 

feedback also incorporates the external perspective 

of the legislature, other stakeholders and the public. 

By administering the self-assessment to employees, 

it also provides an internal perspective of how staff 

views the agency’s Asset Management strengths 

and weaknesses. 

Setting Goals and Objectives 

Because Asset Management is tailored to serve the 

unique needs of each agency, the specific goals and 

objectives it intends to achieve are determined by 

the agency itself. After the self-assessment and gap 

analysis, one of the first steps is for the agency 

leadership to identify the appropriate goals and 

objectives. These will not only guide the activities 

that follow, but they also should define for the 

organization what it seeks to achieve for itself and 

its stakeholders. 

The case studies illustrate how the leadership of five 

different organizations articulated Asset Management goals for their organizations. Some leaders 

developed the goals to guide the staff ’s implementation while others organized teams to develop the 

goals themselves. Either way, the goals serve an 

important function of clarifying to all stakeholders 

what the agency seeks to achieve and how it seeks 

to achieve it. 

Developing a TAM Plan 

A strategy adopted by several successful Asset 

Management agencies was to develop an Asset 

Management Strategic Plan and an Implementation 

Plan. Although not universally used, Transportation Asset Management Plans (TAMPs) are recommended in the new Asset Management Guide and 

by the International Infrastructure Management 

Manual. TAMPs vary considerably with some being 

high-level, policy documents while others are more 

detailed with goals, objectives, performance measures, organizational structures, roles and responsibilities, and monitoring mechanisms to measure 

performance. The plans can be self-contained with 

all necessary elements to implement Asset Management, or they could be briefer documents that are 

augmented by implementation strategies. Either 

way, the Asset Management advocates can use the 

TAMP to clarify directions and set a path for 

implementation. 

Incorporating Risk Management 

Another core competency that agencies must consider and seamlessly integrate into the TAM plan is 

risk management. Risk is defined as “the positive or 

negative effects of uncertainty or variability upon 

agency objectives”. The current state of the nation’s 

transportation infrastructure and fiscal realities are 

resulting in congressional calls for transportation 

agencies to take a risk-based approach to managing 

transportation assets. US transportation agencies 

have for decades applied risk management at the 

project level. Increasingly DOTs are integrating risk 

management more formally into the development of 

their asset management plans. This includes addressing the following questions: 

Executive Brief: Advancing a Transportation Asset Management Approach 11 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. What are the risks to my assets? 

a.	 What are the asset risks to the enterprise or 

the agency as a whole? 

b. What are the asset risks at the program or 

asset class level? 

c.	 What are the risks at the project level or to 

specific assets? 

2. What is my asset risk tolerance and
 

mitigation strategy?
 

a.	 Which critical assets are at high risk? 

b. What is the risk tolerance at the enterprise, 

program and project level? 

c.	 What is the cost to keep my assets within 

the acceptable risk tolerance levels? 

d.	 What is my financial asset risk gap? 

e.	 What is my risk mitigation strategy? 

Implementing the TAM Plan 

Implementing Asset Management involves changing 

some behavior and coordinating the activities of 

many units and individuals. An official implementation plan or at least a formal implementation process 

can assist the agency in coordinating and monitoring 

the many tasks and many individual steps that are 

required. Often, agencies adopt both an implementation plan and a coordinating or reporting process or 

body to keep the plan on track. Oversight groups, 

regular updates, group meetings, performance 

tracking, and schedule monitoring are the typical 

types of project-management tools used to successfully implement an Asset Management plan. 

Developing a Communication Plan 

Augmenting the implementation with a communication plan can be helpful. Because of the large number 

of highly distributed people and functions that need 

to be coordinated, communication is key. Asset 

Management requires high-level and abstract 

attributes such as long-term vision and strategic 

goals. It includes detailed and concrete attributes 

such as current condition data for millions of fields 

of asset inventory databases. To carry out the Asset 

Management plan, department employees and 

vendors must understand not only the long-term 

vision but also the detailed technical requirements of 

providing the data, conducting the asset assessments, 

programming the correct projects and conducting 

the proper maintenance to achieve the long-term 

vision. A communication plan and effort can serve 

an important coordination function. It can provide 

motivation, make note of accomplishments and 

maintain momentum. 

The personal involvement of the leader can be an 

important component of the communication 

effort. Effective communication includes both 

formal and informal communication, with the 

informal communication often being the most 

effective. When employees see the personal 

engagement of the leader in the Asset Management 

implementation effort, it reinforces the importance 

and communicates the commitment of the leadership to Asset Management. 

An external communication plan helps keep the 

external stakeholders informed, involved and supportive of the agency’s TAM effort. Communicating 

the progress made and next steps being pursued in 

the implementation of TAM also shows accountability and adds credibility to the agency’s efforts. 

Benchmarking Best Practices 

Throughout the development of the Asset Management Plan and the implementation stage, peer 

exchanges and the identification of best practices can 

play an important role. They provide benchmarks 

against which an agency can measure itself. They 

provide real-world examples of what worked and 

what didn’t when peers deployed Asset Management. They can boost morale by bringing in advocates and champions who have “been there” and can 

relate to the difficulties of implementing Asset 

Management. Peer Exchanges and the documentation of best practices also can validate the efforts by 

12 Executive Brief: Advancing a Transportation Asset Management Approach 
 

illustrating the benefits other agencies achieved when peer exchanges and noting of best practices can 

they successfully completed their implementation. provide benchmarks and motivation for the 

implementation effort. 

They also highlight how peers addressed challenges 

and overcame obstacles. Throughout the process, 

Examples of Successful TAM Implementation
 

The case studies within Beyond the Short Term 

illustrate how questions about sustainability, 

accountability and performance are being addressed 

by the state transportation agencies in practical, 

straight-forward ways. In each case, the agencies 

reported that by addressing the Asset Management 

questions, they were better able to sustain their 

assets, account to legislators and document their 

long-term performance and strategies. Each case 

study highlights a different element of sustainability, 

accountability and performance that the agencies 

achieved through their Asset Management practices. 

North Carolina used TAM to develop a tiered 

approach to categorize the transportation network 

and prioritize investment strategies linked to maximizing mobility and connectivity to a core set of 

highway corridors. This tiered approach helped the 

agency get buy-in and support from the legislature 

and the public to shift resources from low-volume 

roads and invest proportionally more resources to 

higher-volume and more economically important 

transportation segments. For North Carolina, Asset 

Management has become a central organizational 

principle that is helping the strategic re-focusing of 

efforts and financial priorities. 

In Utah, the agency director led an organizationwide epiphany that the agency should invest the 

same effort and enthusiasm into preserving its assets 

as it displays in building new ones. After the agency 

reflected upon its immense accomplishment of 

improving I-15 before the 2002 Salt Lake City 

Olympics, the director led the agency on an effort 

to identify how it should manage the “whole-life” 

of the new assets. That effort resulted in an agencywide focus upon Asset Management down to the 

individual maintenance appurtenances at the 

county level. 

In Missouri, a major focus on addressing customer 

feedback regarding ride quality led to a focus on 

improving system conditions. As asset conditions 

improved, so did safety, customer satisfaction, ride 

quality and the department’s public credibility. The 

Missouri case study documents the use of customer 

feedback to address specific aspects of improving the 

performance of transportation assets. 

The Oregon case study illustrates how the agency 

took a systematic approach to communicating and 

coordinating its effort to shift from a “worst-first” to 

a more long-term Asset Management approach. The 

agency broke down institutional barriers and organizational silos through a formal Asset Management 

strategic planning effort that included formal plans 

for information technology, internal communication 

and implementation of an Asset Management 

program. 

The Maryland transportation agency’s Asset 

Management program also grew from its performance-enhancement efforts including its Baldrige 

quality approach. The agency began with performance measures and evolved to a long-term Asset 

Management approach for all major assets. The 

agency leaders attribute their Asset Management 

focus for playing a major role in the Maryland 

Executive Brief: Advancing a Transportation Asset Management Approach 13 
 

legislature increasing investment for system 

preservation. They were able to explain a rational, 

long-term approach to managing their highway 

assets that resonated with their legislature. 

These Beyond the Short Term case studies illustrate 

that Asset Management is not an abstract concept 

that is unrelated to the day-to-day pressures that 

transportation executives face. Rather, Asset 

Management is the solution they embraced to help 

them with their most complex challenges—the 

managing of large and aging highway networks in 

the face of steadily eroding revenue and increasing 

public expectations 

Conclusions 

Asset Management principles have long been recognized as a means to sustain highway conditions over 

time to identify a sequence of maintenance, preservation, repair, rehabilitation, and construction 

actions that will achieve and maintain a desired state 

of good repair over the lifecycle of the network at 

the least possible cost. However, Asset Management 

also can be considered as the primary process by 

which sound, long-term performance metrics can 

be produced for transportation infrastructure. In an 

era of accountability, Asset Management practices 

can produce an abundance of sound performance 

metrics that not only satisfy short term reporting 

requirements but also ensure the long-term 

performance of highway assets. 

The increasing focus upon accountability in transportation programs is based in large part upon a 

growing need to demonstrate responsibility. Public 

agencies are under increasing pressure from skeptical 

taxpayers, legislators and the media to demonstrate 

that they are acting responsibly with public 

resources. The achievement of performance targets 

is viewed as evidence that the agency is responsibly 

using its limited resources to achieve performance 

that serves the public. 

More than 20 years of study of performance measurement has repeatedly illustrated that achieving 

short-term performance targets alone does not 

guarantee that an organization is making the best 

long-term decisions. Management frameworks such 

as the Balanced Scorecard, Six Sigma, Baldrige, 

ISO and Total Quality Management have arisen to 

provide a more holistic framework for examining 

an organization’s processes. The adoption of these 

frameworks has been widely accepted as a representation of the agency’s commitment to act responsibly 

toward its customers, to maximize the resources of 

its stakeholders and to ensure its long-term viability 

in a constantly changing business environment. 

Asset Management can provide for a transportation 

agency the same framework of long-term viability 

and continuous improvement that these other 

quality frameworks provide for Fortune 500 companies. When an agency selects its performance targets 

from among the critically important components of 

Asset Management processes, then the agency is far 

more likely to be measuring performance that will 

ensure long-term sustainability of its highway 

networks. 

Asset Management can be the framework for 

satisfying several mission-critical needs. 

•	First, it can provide an organization a long-term 

rational framework for making its infrastructure 

management decisions. 

•	Second, it can be a template that dispersed and 

far-flung agency staff can use to make repeated, 

14 Executive Brief: Advancing a Transportation Asset Management Approach 
 

and on-going day-to-day decisions about how 

to responsibly treat the assets under their 

jurisdiction. 

•	Third, Asset Management can be a framework 

for programmatic decision making that allows 

high-level executives to make rational tradeoffs 

in investments between classes of transportation assets. 

•	Fourth, and perhaps of growing importance, 

Asset Management practices can provide executives with a defensible, long-term set of metrics 

with which to demonstrate that their organizations are accountable, responsible and seek to 

be sustainable. 

An unavoidable lack of resources may threaten the 

long-term sustainability of asset conditions, but with 

an Asset Management process in place the executive 

can demonstrate that limited resources are being 

invested within a rational, thoughtful and factbased framework. 

Executive Brief: Advancing a Transportation Asset Management Approach 15 
Notice 

This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of the U.S. Department
 

of Transportation in the interest of information exchange. The U.S. Government
 

assumes no liability for the use of the information contained in this document.
 

The U.S. Government does not endorse products or manufacturers.
 

Trademarks or manufacturers’ names appear in this report only because
 

they are considered essential to the objective of the document.
 

Prepared for: 

Office of Asset Management 

Federal Highway Administration 

U.S. Department of Transportation 

1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE 

Washington, DC 20590 

Telephone: 202-366-0392 

Fax: 202-366-9981 

www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/asstmgmt 

For additional 

information contact: 

Stephen Gaj 

Leader, System Management & 

Monitoring Team 

Office of Asset Management 

Telephone: 202-366-1336 

Stephen.Gaj@dot.gov 

Prepared by: 

Shobna Varma
 

StarIsis Corporation
 

In association with:
 

Gordon Proctor
 

Gordon Proctor & Assoc.
 

FHWA-IF-12-034