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Transportation Asset Management is a discipline that helps agencies to make fact-based decisions about allocating scarce resources to improve transportation performance. It requires agencies to establish well-defined objectives and measures of performance, maintain pertinent information about their assets, analyze a wide range of options for preserving assets and improving service, and monitor performance to provide accountability and feedback into decision-making.
Transportation Asset Management has most commonly been applied to major infrastructure assets such as pavements and bridges. However, the same principles and methods can be valuable for guiding increasingly complex decisions about allocating resources within and across different transportation operations program areas.
The FHWA Office of Operations has embarked on a program of research to define specific transportation asset management methodologies for operations. This report, Elements of a Comprehensive Signals Asset Management System, takes an important first step in this effort. The report focuses on a single aspect of transportation operations – traffic signal systems – and explores how asset management can be used to improve critical decisions about resource allocation and deployment. The report also contrasts the emerging view of signal systems asset management with the more established practices for infrastructure and information technology asset management. This comparison provides an understanding of what can be adapted from these existing practices for use in operations, and where new research is required to fill gaps in methodologies that are specific to operations.
The intended audiences for this report are transportation agency executives and operations managers who are interested in improved techniques for enhanced decision-making and accountability.
Jeff Lindley
Director, Office of Transportation Management
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. This report does not constitute a standard, specification, or regulation.
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.
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) provides high-quality information to serve Government, industry, and the public in a manner that promotes public understanding. Standards and policies are used to ensure and maximize the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of its information. FHWA periodically reviews quality issues and adjusts its programs and processes to ensure continuous quality improvement.
1. Report No. FHWA-HOP-05-006 |
2. Government Accession No. |
3. Recipient's Catalog No. | |
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4. Title and Subtitle Elements of a Comprehensive Signals Asset Management System |
5. Report Date December 2004 | ||
6. Performing Organization Code | |||
7. Author(s) Frances D. Harrison, Daniel Krechmer, Jennifer Strasser, |
8. Performing Organization Report No. | ||
9. Performing Organization Name and Address Cambridge Systematics, Inc. |
10. Work Unit No. | ||
11. Contract or Grant No. DTFH61-01-C-00181 | |||
12. Sponsoring Agency Name and Address Office of Operations |
13. Type of Report and Period Covered Final Report | ||
14. Sponsoring Agency Code | |||
15. Supplementary Notes FHWA COTR: Barry Zimmer, Operations Support Team | |||
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16. Abstract This document takes an initial step towards development of an operations asset management methodology through an investigation of traffic signal systems applications. It presents findings of a state-of-the-practice review of signal systems asset management and lays out the characteristics of signal systems that need to be considered in defining an asset management approach. The report then develops an architecture for a signal system asset management system, and presents an analysis illustrating how such a system could be used to evaluate tradeoffs across different options for addressing signal system deficiencies. The report concludes with a comparison of the signal systems asset management approach to asset management systems currently in use for infrastructure assets and information technology assets. Elements of each of these two types of asset management systems can be used as models for the further development of the signal systems asset management methodology. The architecture, analysis, and comparison presented in the report provide a solid basis for proceeding with further development of a signal system asset management approach. They also provide insights that are applicable to developing asset management approaches for other types of operations assets. |
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17. Key Words Asset management, traffic operations, traffic signal systems, management systems |
18. Distribution Statement No restrictions. This document is available to the public through the National Information Service, | ||
19. Security Classif. Unclassified |
20. Security Classif. Unclassified |
21. No. of Pages 62 |
22. Price |
Form DOT F 1700.7 (8-72) Reproduction of completed page authorized
