The percentage of pavements and bridges in Fair condition represents a significant portion of the nation’s inventory. This document summarizes points raised during virtual meetings conducted by the FHWA’s Transportation Asset Management Expert Task Group (TAM ETG) during calendar year 2021. These discussions addressed the importance of managing pavement and bridge assets in Fair condition as a cost-effective strategy for system preservation. This summary highlights several examples provided by the TAM ETG to illustrate the importance of managing assets in Fair condition and suggests the consideration of performance to preserve or extend asset life in accordance with sound lifecycle planning practices to mitigate risk.

Transportation agencies consider trade-offs between investment options to address competing priorities with limited resources. Inadequate funding for all needed transportation improvements forces agencies to make difficult decisions across asset classes. The results of these decisions can have a positive impact on one performance measure but a negative impact on another. In addition to factors such as system preservation, mobility, and safety when making transportation investment decisions, equity is also an important consideration.

FHWA’s Transportation Asset Management Expert Task Group (TAM ETG) recognized the importance of equity as an emerging topic and prepared this document to explore existing initiatives underway in state, local, and regional transportation agencies to better consider equity in asset management decisions. The results indicate that equity considerations are more common in transportation planning activities than in asset management decisions impacting project selection. Therefore, the document presents suggestions for advancing the consideration of equity in asset management investment decisions.

This presentation focuses on the training necessary for adequate performance management at State DOTs and the advantages of a stable culture can provide. Ideally, a team works synergistically to produce a product greater than the sum of its part. However, this becomes possible only when the members of the team possess diverse and varied skillsets. The video slides are available here.

While the integration of transportation asset management has grown in recent decades, more transportation agencies are adopting TAM practices following the passage of the MAP-21 legislation. This presentation explores some of the challenges of TAM adoption including system integration and the communication of results.

This presentation is focused on defining and explaining cross-asset decision making. This is the idea that investments are allocated by analyzing the perceived needs of multiple programs and asset classes and are distributed based upon the simultaneous quantified prioritization of utility. It focuses on three types–benefit/cost analysis, multi-criteria decision analysis, and risk/reward-based. The presentation slides are available here.

This presentation focuses on transportation asset management and its likely rise to prominence in the near future. It explains that transportation asset management practices are applicable at all levels of transportation management and can improve efficiency and decision making. The slides are available here.

Traditionally, agency investment decisions have focused on individual projects that address the needs of a single asset, such as a pavement or bridge. As agencies have advanced their asset management practices, there has been increasing interest in establishing investment strategies that cross the traditional silos. During this webinar, the TAM ETG will present its White Paper on the topic and delve into this topic in detail with a panel of state DOT executives. The presentation slides are here.

This webinar builds on the previous webinars by providing an opportunity for transportation agencies to share their experiences with conducting network-level life cycle analysis, including how the results of the analysis have influenced their investment strategies.
The slides for this presentation are available for each part: introduction, Michigan DOT, Ohio DOT, and Seattle DOT

The TAM Expert Task group was established to serve as a forum to discuss changes in the way highway agencies are managing assets. This webinar addressing Network Life Cycle Cost Analysis is the third in a series of six webinars. The slides from the webinar can be downloaded via the links below:

• Introductory slides
• Life Cycle Costing for Pavements - Kirby Becker, MnDOT
• Life Cycle Cost Analysis in Bridge Management - Paul Thompson, Consultant
  
• Financial Plans Supporting Life Cycle Costs - Shobna Varma, Starisis Corporation
  

The second in a series of asset management webinars sponsored by the FHWA transportation asset management Expert Task Group. View the webinar slides here.

The first webinar in the FHWA TAM Expert Task Group's series covers target setting for asset management plans. This presentation provides insight into activities conducted outside of the US as well as perspectives from Ohio and Minnesota. The presentation slides are available here.