In 2012, federal legislation introduced a requirement for formal transportation asset management (TAM) in transportation agencies. The law specifically requires agencies to develop TAM plans and implement TAM programs in their decision-making processes. The history of national policy development for (TAM) and research in policy implementation and organizational theory have shown that program sustainment is not easily achieved. Often, agencies can respond to this kind of legislative mandate with ineffective efforts to achieve legitimacy that reduce the likelihood for the program to be sustained in the long-term. This presents a challenge because without sustainment, the benefits of TAM, which are mostly long-term, may not be fully realized. The objective of this work was to develop a conceptual framework to guide transportation agencies to review their TAM implementation practices and identify opportunities to enhance long-term program sustainment. The conceptual basis for the framework comes from a synthesis of transportation, policy and program implementation, and change management literature, supported by insight from a panel of practitioner and academic experts. The TAM Implementation Review Framework (TIRF) incorporates seven themes of implementation factors that can promote sustainment of TAM practices impacting the social, organizational, and programmatic elements of implementation. The TIRF was applied in case studies to review the TAM implementation processes of three Departments of Transportation (DOTs) resulting in different kinds of information on how implementation activities address factors related to program sustainment. These results can steer future implementation activities in DOTs towards increased probabilities of achieving long-term program sustainment. The primary contributions of this work lie in the development of the conceptual framework and approach to enhance TAM implementation by emphasizing the people and organizational elements of TAM, alongside with the technical. In practice, the TIRF offers agencies a review and planning tool to support TAM implementation decision making and to promote program sustainment. The output is being proposed as a foundational element in the development of an evidence-based catalog of TAM implementation strategies. This can facilitate inter-agency knowledge sharing by providing a platform for systematic documentation of implementation experiences to support broader adoption of strategies that can contribute to increased program sustainment.

Transportation Asset Management (TAM) systems are in use at many transportation agencies both in the United States and around the world. These asset management systems serve as strategic resource allocation frameworks and their degree of implementation and maturity varies. Climatic change, with its potentially adverse impacts on both the built and natural environments, has become of increasing concern around the globe. Given the uncertainties associated with changing climatic conditions, transportation agency stakeholders utilize risk-based decision-making approaches to identify climate change impacts that pose the greatest risk to transportation infrastructure assets. In conjunction with criticality assessments, emerging conceptual frameworks seek to identify higher-risk infrastructure assets, which are both critical to system operations and vulnerable to potential climate change impacts, through standalone study efforts. This research develops a risk-oriented decision-making framework to identify vulnerable, higher-risk transportation infrastructure assets within the context of existing transportation asset management systems. The framework assesses the relative maturity of an agency’s transportation asset management system and provides guidance as to how an agency’s existing tools and processes can be used to incorporate climate change considerations. This risk-based decision-making framework is applied to three case studies: one at the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, another at the Metropolitan Planning Commission in Savannah – Chatham County, and a statewide case study at the Georgia Department of Transportation. The results of this research demonstrate that readily-available climate projection data can be analyzed and displayed geospatially so that the potential impacts of climatic change on transportation infrastructure can be determined for specific geographic regions. In addition, existing roadway and bridge infrastructure datasets can also be displayed geospatially. The framework uses geospatially-referenced roadway and bridge asset data and multi-criteria decision analysis procedures to develop and visually display criticality scores. Overlaying climate projection data and criticality data helps identify higher-risk transportation infrastructure assets. This research demonstrates that climate change considerations can be effectively incorporated in existing decision-making processes at various levels of maturity of formal TAM systems, making this more broadly accessible to agencies and communities with potential climate hazards.

Master of Science / Department of Civil Engineering / Yacoub M. Najjar / Asset Management is a relatively new term in the transportation world. It involves a systematic approach to maintaining, upgrading and operating all transportation assets (including infrastructure) cost-effectively. With the Government Accounting Standards Board's Statement 34 (GASB 34) requiring all transportation entities to report all capital assets on their annual reports as well as the development of new software and technologies, Asset Management is becoming easier to implement and quickly becoming an important part of the transportation industry. In Kansas the Department of Transportation has developed and successfully utilized an Asset Management system for all assets including bridges, roadways, drainage structures and signs. Kansas counties however, do not have the funds and personnel to implement and maintain an Asset Management system similar to that of the KDOT. Asset Management systems have only been developed by counties with large populations, but even they have not reached the full potential of the system. This thesis discusses the importance of creating and maintaining an effective Asset Management system. Kansas counties were surveyed and asked a series of questions about their asset management systems, or lack thereof, as well as the successes and failures of these systems. The counties were asked how they prioritize maintenance, what software they are using, and what assets they have inventoried. The results of the questionnaire showed that counties with large populations have shown interest in implementing Asset Management systems and many have worked to implement such a system. Conversely, counties with small populations that do not have the resources have not implemented Asset Management systems. Recommendations for implementing appropriate Asset Management systems are made to counties in the three population ranges: i) less than 5,000, ii) between 5,000 and 50,000, and iii) greater than 50,000. These include software recommendations and creating inventories of all county assets including culverts, signs and pavements.

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Transportation Asset Management (TAM) systems are in use at a significant number of transportation agencies. These systems can be used to effectively allocate resources and continuously inventory and monitor the condition of transportation infrastructure assets. Risk-oriented decision making is becoming an increasingly important component of the management process at many organizations, including transportation agencies. TAM systems can be used to incorporate risk assessment and risk management techniques at transportation agencies. To demonstrate the value of incorporating risk in TAM systems, an examination of the literature was performed, and a case study was conducted. This case study incorporated risk in bridge project prioritization through the utilization of data from the National Bridge Inventory (NBI), and application of Multi Attribute Decision Making (MADM) concepts to address uncertainty and prioritize selected bridges in the state of Georgia. The case study examines the impacts of data aggregation and disaggregation, and the incorporation of uncertainty on bridge project prioritization. Results of this analysis show that when available, disaggregate data on bridge condition should be used. In addition, uncertainty, in terms of performance risk, should be incorporated when past bridge condition data is available. Furthermore, decision-maker input is an important component of the Multi Attribute Utility Theory (MAUT) prioritization methodology used in this analysis. Decision-makers determine the relative importance of certain attributes, which is one of the strengths of this type of prioritization effort.

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