Street & Road Management System™:
Helping Communities’ Transportation Investments Go Farther
 Hot Topic:
“Asset Management also provides the ability to show how, when, and why resources were committed. Transportation officials are being held increasingly more accountable by their customers—the American public. The public demands a consistently high return on the portfolio of transportation assets, which, of course, represents a collection of public resources.”
–Asset Management Primer, published by the US Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, December 1999
A “perfect storm” in transportation infrastructure for communities and counties is brewing through a combination of:
- Volatile fuel and construction materials
- Decreasing revenues for road maintenance
- Uncertainty in future highway funding
- Increasing complaints about road conditions
One way for communities and counties to address this critical challenge is to adopt a preventive maintenance approach to prolong the life of their pavement assets. Similar to the preventive maintenance of homes or vehicles, pavement life can be extended by monitoring its condition and applying relatively simple solutions when wear begins to show, rather than waiting until deterioration requires costly rehabilitation or reconstruction. When compared to the typical “fix the worst first” approach, a dollar spent on preventive maintenance saves communities many times that amount, while maintaining better roads overall.
Yet, while federal and state governments have embraced the concept of pavement asset management since the 1990s, the expensive equipment and tools required for most cities and counties to follow suit are cost prohibitive. Recognizing the need for a system tailored to the needs and budgets of municipalities, BLA developed a system that extends the benefits of asset management to local governments. Drawing upon 20 years of experience in asset management, BLA’s Street & Road Management System (SRMS) provides a proven, cost-effective system to help communities and counties extend the life of pavement and roadway components and optimize their transportation investment. The most recent version of SRMS, released in 2008, incorporates advances in Geographic Information and Global Positioning systems to allow for increased integration of data.
 Cool Projects:
Broken Pavement
In 1989, Warrick County, Indiana needed over $14.7 million to maintain and upgrade its roads. With an annual maintenance budget of less than $0.5 million, the county asked BLA to use SRMS to help them develop a plan to address this funding gap. BLA began by conducting an inventory and evaluation of roadways, as well as shoulders and drainage structures that could be shortening the life cycle of the pavement. Rather than using the highly sophisticated and expensive vehicles available to state departments of transportation, BLA’s pavement experts employed a series of criteria to rate road conditions, such as types of cracks, rideability, traffic type and volume, among others to provide the county with a snapshot of current conditions and likely causes. BLA then utilized SRMS’ software component to analyze the data gathered.
Next BLA considered the various “fixes” used to maintain and upgrade Warrick County’s roads and drainage. Using the cost of the most logical fix in conjunction with section length and traffic volume, BLA developed a cost per vehicle mile (CPVM) for each roadway section.
This CPVM helped BLA working with the county to prioritize projects and identify ways to extend the life of its pavement assets. As a result, BLA convinced the county to use a third of its budget for preventive maintenance of select roads. A dollar spent appropriately to “keep good roads good,” typically equates to about $8 when that roadway is allowed to deteriorate to the point of requiring rehabilitation or $20 if it requires reconstruction. By not allowing good roads to decline, the county slowly upgraded the condition of all of its roads.
In refining the county’s list of priorities, special needs, such as accommodating future growth of certain areas or economic development goals, were incorporated to arrive at a 10-year plan to address county needs. This process also enabled the county to pass two bond elections to help fund the roadway improvements.
By the end of the 10-year period, the average condition of the entire Warrick County roadway system increased from 5.7 to 7.2, on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being the equivalent of a new road). Using preventive maintenance, total maintenance needs declined from almost $15 million annually to under $2.5 million despite growing the size of its roadway network. Now in the midst of its second 10-year plan, it’s difficult to find a county road in poor condition, allowing residents and county officials to use tax dollars for other challenges and opportunities.
The Warrick County success story can be the answer to your “perfect storm” in transportation. Using SRMS, BLA can help you develop a plan to get the most out of your transportation dollars while improving the overall condition of your roads and reducing the complaints. As Steve Sherwood, former Warrick County Engineer observed, “Maintaining roads is a major investment for every community…it only makes sense to work with an expert.”
Click here to learn more about SRMS |
