National Academies Press: OpenBook

An Asset-Management Framework for the Interstate Highway System (2009)

Chapter: Chapter 1 - Introduction

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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 1 - Introduction." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2009. An Asset-Management Framework for the Interstate Highway System. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14233.
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 1 - Introduction." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2009. An Asset-Management Framework for the Interstate Highway System. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14233.
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31.1 Research Objectives The objective of NCHRP Project 20-74 is to develop a practical framework for applying asset-management principles and practices to managing IHS investments. The framework developed through the project is intended to: • Be holistic, applicable to existing facilities and those that may be developed in the future; • Provide the basis for making decisions across asset classes in an integrated manner and from a systemwide perspective about operation and maintenance as well as new construc- tion and reconstruction; and • Be easy to implement, cost-effective, and sufficiently benefi- cial to be attractive for adoption by transportation officials and agencies nationwide. The IHS is the backbone of the nation’s transportation sys- tem, essential nationwide for providing mobility and crucial to the United States maintaining its economic competitive- ness. A number of efforts are currently underway to assess the state of the IHS and the future of the system. The objective of the current effort is to supplement other work on the past and future of the IHS with tools and approaches for better man- aging the system in the present. 1.2 Criticality of the Interstate Highway System It is impossible to overstate the importance of the IHS to global, national, regional, and local area movements of people and goods. On a global scale, the competitiveness of the United States in international trade and the need to surmount the challenges of moving goods over long distances has benefited immensely from this far-reaching network of roads that for a generation had no equal. Moving forward, with the looming economic power houses of China and India building similar networks as they emulate our success and close their internal mobility gaps, effective management of the IHS will be more important than ever before if the United States is to remain competitive in the world economy. On a national scale, the IHS has transformed the nation, en- abling coast-to-coast travel and trade in a matter of days instead of weeks. Approximately 20 percent of all road travel by auto- mobiles, trucks, and buses occurs on the one percent of miles represented by the IHS. On a regional level, the IHS has facili- tated economic integration and accessibility within numerous multistate corridors, as evidenced by the growing number of voluntary interstate corridor coalitions of states and metropol- itan areas that have sprung to life over the past 15 years. On a more local level, in literally hundreds of urbanized areas around the country, networks of beltways and radial highways serve as the surface transportation backbone of metropolitan regions. Despite the undeniable significance of the IHS as a physi- cal, economic, and social asset at all geographic levels from the globe to the beltway, there is no generally accepted frame- work for managing and operating these assets in a manner that considers the unique needs of the IHS. The absence of such a framework is understandable considering: • The focus for over four decades on completing the initial system. • The variation in needs across the system reflecting differ- ences in age and in traffic volumes and patterns, as well as weather and soil conditions, and differences in expecta- tions and priorities of system users and owners. • Ownership and maintenance responsibilities are dispersed among the 48 contiguous states (plus Hawaii, which has three interstate routes), and therefore it is understandable that different approaches to preserving, operating, and en- hancing the system would emerge over the years. • For many of the entities that own and operate the IHS, this system must fit within the financial and operational paradigms confronting each agency for a much larger system of streets and highways as well as other facilities over which C H A P T E R 1 Introduction

they have operational responsibilities. This is magnified by the need to spend Federal dollars predominately based on specified spending categories. • The aversion among states and localities to becoming ho- mogenized under the weight of “one-size-fits-all” legal re- quirements and technical processes that can fail to consider their individual and unique situations and challenges, and which can encourage superficial and misleading “apples and oranges” comparisons that can easily distort reality. Notwithstanding these reasons why an asset manage- ment framework for the IHS has not emerged, the initiative represented by this project signals an emerging recognition of the need for and potential benefits of establishing such a framework. The framework presented here is intended to help move consideration of IHS investment decisions away from what is often a patchwork combination of incomplete and inconsis- tent “factual” information and the even more nebulous array of subjective policy-level and political pressures to a more ob- jective, fact driven, repeatable, performance-based approach. It provides a national vision that can be implemented based on sensitivity to unique state, regional, and local conditions and realities. The framework cannot eliminate the influence of more subjective pressures on investment decisions. How- ever, it can be used to objectively assess and communicate the consequences of actions and decisions driven by factors that are perhaps more subjective and less defensible. The initial deployment of the IHS to physical standards that are consistent, and with connections that met without fail at mutually agreeable state line crossings, is something of an institutional “miracle”—a miracle perhaps explained by several key factors: • A compelling need to provide an enhanced level of highway service for the post World War II burgeoning population of cars and trucks. • A clear vision by a motivated President whose personal ex- periences in the now famous 1919 cross-country caravan which he led and with the German autobahns he encoun- tered in the closing days of the Second World War provided more than a sufficient basis for his proactive leadership. This vision of the system as critical to the future of the na- tion’s growth and to its defense has served as focus for this great infrastructure construction. • A too-good-to-turn-down funding mechanism that pro- vided 90/10 funding that was recalculated every two years based upon each state’s proportionate requirements in re- lation to all other states and the national commitment to a “cost to complete” approach to build the system. • The energy, commitment, and long-term “buy-in” among political stakeholders, as well as among technical-level pro- fessionals, that is inherent in undertaking the implementa- tion of a grand plan of action that has never before been done. By comparison, it is arguable that formulating an Interstate Asset Management Framework that will be widely accepted and embraced in today’s setting reflects the need for an even greater miracle, with the technical challenges, though signifi- cant, paling in comparison to the institutional. However, with nothing short of the continued economic security and pros- perity of the United States on the line, it is imperative that this miracle happen. The chapters of this report describe the frame- work for managing and operating consistently the assets asso- ciated with the IHS in order to help achieve this vision. 1.3 Report Organization The remainder of this report is organized into the following chapters: • Chapter 2 presents the Interstate Asset Management Frame- work, providing an overview of transportation asset man- agement concepts, detailing how these concepts can be applied to IHS assets, describing where the present effort has focused on developing these concepts further, and out- lining the recommended approach to develop an agency’s Interstate Asset Management Plan applying the framework. • Chapter 3 details an approach to incorporating risk man- agement in the Interstate Asset Management Framework, details the steps in the approach, and discusses institutional responsibilities in implementing risk management. • Chapter 4 summarizes readily available data and tools for managing IHS assets, and provides guidance on how existing data and tools can be used to support the Interstate Asset Management Framework. • Chapter 5 describes the performance management approach central to the framework. This section recommends a set of performance measures to use in characterizing conditions of an agency’s IHS assets and documents the approach used to develop the recommended set of measures. • Chapter 6 provides implementation guidance, discussing practical issues in implementing the Interstate Asset Manage- ment Framework, potential focus areas for an implementa- tion effort, leadership roles, implementation benefits, and potential challenges. • Chapter 7 presents the conclusions of the NCHRP 20-74 research effort. • Appendix A describes the literature review performed, which focuses on recent research on risk management, asset man- agement data and tools, and performance management. • Appendix B describes the pilot application performed as part of the research to test application of the Interstate Asset Management Framework. 4

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TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 632: An Asset-Management Framework for the Interstate Highway System explores a framework for applying asset-management principles and practices to managing Interstate Highway System investments.

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