Report No.

CDOT-DTD-R-2001-13
Final Report

ASSET MANAGEMENT IMPLEMENTATION

PLAN AND TIERED SYSTEM PROCESS

Michael J. Markow, PE
Joe Racosky, PE

September 2001

COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

RESEARCH BRANCH
The contents of this report reflect the views of the authors, who are responsible for the facts and
accuracy of the data presented herein. The contents do not necessarily reflect the official views
of the Colorado Department of Transportation or the Federal Highway Administration. This
report does not constitute a standard, specification, or regulation.
1. Report No. 2. Government Accession No. 3. Recipient's Catalog No.
CDOT-DTD-R-2001-13
4. Title and Subtitle 5. Report Date
ASSET MANAGEMENT IMPLEMENTATION PLAN AND TIERED September 2001
SYSTEM PROCESS
6. Performing Organization Code
CS 6955-002
BRW 33753-051
7. Author(s) 8. Performing Organization Report No.
Michael J. Markow, PE (CS); Joe Racosky, PE (BRW)
9. Performing Organization Name and Address 10. Work Unit No. (TRAIS)

Cambridge Systematics BRW, Inc

150 CambridgePark Drive, 1225 17th Street, Suite 200 11. Contract or Grant No.
Suite 4000 Denver, CO 80303 PG HAA 2000HQ00382
Cambridge, MA 02140
12. Sponsoring Agency Name and Address 13. Type of Report and Period Covered
Colorado Department of Transportation – Research Final
4201 East Arkansas Avenue
Denver, CO 80222

14. Sponsoring Agency Code

65.10
15. Supplementary Notes
Prepared in cooperation with the US Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration

16. Abstract
This study has developed a five-year transportation asset management plan for the Colorado Department of Transportation
(CDOT). This study has also developed a proposed tiering structure of the state highway system to support asset
management. Asset management represents a strategic approach to managing transportation infrastructure. It embodies a
set of principles to improve how an agency conducts business, how it reaches decisions, and how it processes, uses, and
communicates information. CDOT, in consultation with the Colorado Transportation Commission, has already taken a
number of steps toward improved asset management. A unique Investment Category approach organizes program
investments within a policy-oriented framework incorporating explicit measures of performance. Other steps taken by
CDOT include updates of the statewide planning process and the program prioritization process, establishment of
maintenance program levels of service, institution of customer surveys, and updates of relevant information technology
applications. The recommended transportation asset management plan builds upon these established concepts, methods,
information, and tools to propose specific actions over the next five years in the following areas: (1) completion of all
elements of the Investment Category structure; (2) incorporation of asset management principles in CDOT’s planning and
programming processes, building on a tiered structuring of CDOT assets that has also been recommended in this study; (3)
integration of asset management information on a GIS platform, and renewal of Information Technology strategic planning
to support asset management department-wide; and (4) strengthening of program delivery mechanisms and measures. The
recommended tiering of the state highway system is built around the concept of interregional corridors, because CDOT is
the sole provider of significant interregional highway transportation.

17. Key Word 18. Distribution Statement

infrastructure, highways, transit, transportation planning, This document is available to the public through:
capital programming, maintenance management, program National Technical Information Service
delivery, investment categories, management systems, 5825 Port Royal Road
information technology, tiering, highway classification Springfield, VA 22161

19. Security Classif. (of this report) 20. Security Classif. (of this page) 21. No. of 22. Price
None None Pages
133
Form DOT F 1700.7 (8-72) Reproduction of completed page authorized

i
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 ASSET MANAGEMENT IMPLEMENTATION PLAN
AND TIERED SYSTEM PROCESS

by

Michael J. Markow, PE
Joe Racosky, PE

Report No. CDOT-DTD-R-2001-13

Prepared by
Cambridge Systematics BRW
150 CambridgePark Drive, Suite 4000 1225 17th Street, Suite 200
Cambridge, MA 02140 Denver, CO 80202

Sponsored by the
Colorado Department of Transportation
In Cooperation with the
U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration

September 2001

Colorado Department of Transportation

Research Branch
4201 E. Arkansas Ave.
Denver, CO 80222
(303) 757-9506

iii
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 Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the following staff of the Colorado Department of
Transportation (CDOT) for their valuable active participation in the study effort:

Jennifer Finch, Director, Division of Transportation Development

Rich Griffin, Research Coordination Engineer and Study Manager

Original Study Panel Members

Marilyn Beem, Statewide and Regional Planning Manager
Heather Dugan, Budget Director
Ed Fink, Staff Maintenance Director
Steve Horton, Staff Design and Construction Director
Don Kirkpatrick, Information Systems Director
George McCullar, CDOT Controller

Additional Participants in Study Panel Process

Tim Aschenbrener, Materials / Geotechnical Engineer
Dave Busby, Performance Measures Specialist
Mark Leonard, Staff Bridge Engineer
Scott Young, Business Office Manager

State Transportation Commission and Senior CDOT Executives

The authors would also like to thank the State Transportation Commission and Doug Aden,
Chairman and Don Morrison, Vice-Chairman; Tom Norton, Executive Director, Peggy Catlin,
Deputy Director, and John Unbewust, Chief Engineer; and the Executive Management Team
(EMT) for their contributions

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Asset Management Plan

Executive Summary

ES.1 Asset Management Overview

Asset management represents a strategic approach to managing transportation

infrastructure. It embodies a philosophy that is comprehensive, proactive, and long-term,
with the following goals:

• To build, preserve, operate, and reinvest in facilities more cost-effectively with

improved performance;

• To deliver to an agency’s customers the best value for the dollar spent; and

• To enhance CDOT’s credibility and accountability in its stewardship of transportation

assets.

Asset management provides a set of principles that guide an agency in improving how it
conducts business, how it reaches decisions, and how it processes, uses, and communicates
information related to the management of its infrastructure. At its core, asset management
focuses on an agency’s allocation and utilization of resources – funding, people and skills,
and information. It provides an integrated framework that establishes common approaches
across asset classes in planning, program development, and program delivery. It
encourages a number of best practices in these processes: e.g., consideration of the full
range of alternatives at each stage of decision, adoption of a long-term view in economic
analysis of projects, evaluation of tradeoffs across programs, monitoring of program
delivery and system performance, and effective use of management and information
systems throughout the infrastructure management cycle. Asset management is results-
oriented, driven by policy goals and objectives with clear measures of system performance
and accountability.

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ES.2 CDOT Accomplishments to Date

CDOT, in consultation with the Colorado Transportation Commission, has already taken a
number of steps toward improved asset management. A major development has been the
establishment of its Investment Category structure, which organizes program investments
within a policy-oriented framework identifying explicit measures of performance. CDOT’s
Investment Category structure is unique among state DOT practice nationwide:

• The Investment Category structure integrates several elements critical to asset

management within a coherent, overarching framework;

• It structures investments based upon policy objective and impact on performance rather

than funding source; and

• It facilitates the analysis of tradeoffs among capital, maintenance, and operations

program categories.

The Investment Category structure establishes the unifying framework for communicating a
vision of asset management at CDOT, and provides a foundation for the Asset Management
Plan recommended in this study. The Investment Category structure is not the only
advance that has been undertaken by CDOT, however. Other CDOT accomplishments
complement the Investment Category approach, including updates of the statewide planning
process and the program prioritization process, establishment of maintenance program
levels of service, institution of customer surveys, and updates of relevant information
technology applications.

ES.3 Asset Management Plan for CDOT

This Asset Management Plan builds upon these established concepts, methods, information,
and tools to propose specific actions over the next five years to build upon and expand these
accomplishments. Hallmarks of this vision include the following:

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1. Completion of all elements of the Investment Category structure;

2. Incorporation of asset management principles in CDOT’s planning and programming

processes, building on the tiered structuring of CDOT assets recommended in this
study;

3. Integration of asset management information on a GIS platform, and renewal of

Information Technology strategic planning to support asset management department-
wide; and

4. Strengthening of program delivery mechanisms and measures.

Each of these four areas entails multiple tasks that will need to be accomplished. An
outline of these tasks follows, with recommended organizational responsibility, timeframe,
and estimated budget amount. Timeframes are identified as near-term (accomplish in one
to two years), mid-term (accomplish in three to four years), and long-term (accomplish in
five years or longer). Budget figures identify total estimated cost, if applicable, to fund one
or more projects associated with an objective or task. These costs are additional to those
that may already be planned by CDOT. The objectives and tasks below constitute the key
elements of CDOT’s Transportation Asset Management Plan.

While the tasks are organized by area for clarity, in fact they will interact with each other
across areas. For example, performance measures defined in the Policy area need to be
incorporated in the systems and tools discussed in the Information and Analytic area, so
that they can be applied to tradeoff analyses and decisions in the Planning and
Programming area.

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Policy and Institutional Recommendations

Asset Management Objective Timing and

CDOT Unit Responsible Task Cost

A. Designate a departmental task 1. Designate the task force, building upon the Near-term
force under the Deputy Director experience of the Project Panel for Asset
to guide implementation of the Management Plan development.
asset management plan.

Director

B. Complete and refine 1. Complete definition of statewide goals, Near-term

Investment Category goals, targets, and performance measures for all
targets, and performance programs.
measures
2. Discuss the completed approach with local Near-term
DTD and regional planning agencies.

C. Fold the performance 1. Apply established performance measures to Near-term

measurement of all programs, identify impacts of all projects, including
including future strategic strategic projects.
(“7th pot”) projects, within the
Mobility, Safety, and System 2. Implement procedures on a trial basis, assess Near-term
Quality Categories results, discuss with Transportation
Commission, and finalize.
DTD

D. Define state interest in non- 1. Identify and categorize non-state-owned Mid-term

state-owned infrastructure. assets in which CDOT has an interest.

EMT 2. Review potential investment policies with Mid-term

Transportation Commission

E. Improve public and internal 1. Hold periodic departmental workshops to Near-term

understanding and support of discuss asset management and its implications
asset management techniques. for department activities.

Deputy Director 2. Develop and distribute public information Near-term

describing asset management and its importance. $75,000

3. Track public perceptions of, and satisfaction

with, asset management performance through Mid-term
customer surveys.

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Asset Management Plan

Planning and Programming Recommendations

Asset Management Objective Timing and

CDOT Unit Responsible Task Cost

A. Implement tiered 1. Implement recommended tiered system on a Mid-term

classification of transportation trial basis in cooperation with local and regional
assets. agencies.

DTD 2. Implement final set within planning and Long-term

programming procedures and management and $500,000
information systems.

B. Develop more complete scope 1. Work with Regions to define a process and Mid-term,
and cost information for STIP information needs. $250,000
projects (coordinate with Program
Delivery) 2. Implement by 2004. Mid-term

OFMB

C. Strengthen application of 1. Develop consistent measures across Near-term

performance measures. Investment Categories and programs serving
common goals (e.g., safety, pavement/
Deputy Director, Chief Engineer, maintenance, bridge/maintenance)
DTD, Asset Managers,
Maintenance & Operations 2. Develop specialized tools for tradeoff Near- to
analyses and promote greater integration among Mid-term,
management system and data $1,000,000

3. Develop or adapt applications to predict Long-term,

customer impacts in terms of user costs. $250,000

D. Review over time those 1. Perform the following: Long-term,

program allocations based on $250,000
formulas to ensure consistency • Identify program components subject to
with performance-based asset “fixed” or “formula” distributions.
management
• Analyze implications across Regions and
Deputy Director TPRs, comparing formula distributions
versus implied distributions based upon
performance measures.

• Discuss comparison with Transportation

Commission, CDOT managers, local and
regional agencies.

• Implement recommended changes.

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Program Delivery Recommendations

Asset Management Objective Timing and

CDOT Unit Responsible Task Cost

A. Strengthen tracking of 1. Develop program tracking methodology and Mid-term,

program delivery and major system based upon more complete initial cost $350,000
project changes (coordinate with and scope estimates.
Planning and Programming).
2. Establish a program review team to meet Mid-term
Deputy Director periodically to review and approve major
changes in scope, time, and cost.

B. Ensure consistency of 1. Reinforce procedures to define projects by Mid-term

accomplishments with program employing information from management
estimates of PMS, BMS, and systems.
MMS
2. Expand project delivery reports to confirm Mid-term
Chief Engineer specific project treatments applied, or reasons
for deviation

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Information and Analytic Recommendations

Asset Management Objective Timing and

CDOT Unit Responsible Task Cost

A. Meet end-user needs for 1. Conduct QA/QC checks to achieve reliable, Near-term
complete, accurate, timely credible management system operation and
information. predictions

Chief Engineer 2. Schedule training of asset management staff Near-term,

to become more familiar with full range of $50,000
PMS, BMS, MMS capabilities and to make
better use of existing system capabilities

3. Fill analytic gaps with simple, quick, Near- to Mid-

economical tools. term, $200,000

B. Enhance Information 1. Reconstitute the ITRT to provide high-level Near-term

Technology (IT) support for guidance for asset management.
asset management in CDOT.
2. Charge the ITRT to develop and implement Near-term
Deputy Director an IT plan for asset management (e.g., to guide
system integration and new system
development)

C. Integrate asset management 1. Details to be developed in IT plan, Mid- to Long-

system data on CDOT’s GIS. including: term; must be
coordinated
ITRT • Classification of assets in a tiered structure; with other GIS
objectives;
• Integrated condition and performance potential cost is
measures, referencing systems, data at least several
sources; million dollars,
not exclusively
• Program and project information to be for asset mgmt.
displayed on GIS; and

• System capabilities: displays, queries,

reports.

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ES.4 Near-Term Implementation

The near-term tasks identified above present opportunities for immediate accomplishment
as CDOT begins implementation of the Asset Management Plan. Many of these items are
organizational and procedural in nature, and build upon the considerable work that CDOT
has already done to promote better asset management. These near-term tasks will enable
CDOT to engage all organizational units and levels of the Department in the asset
management philosophy, and to lay the groundwork for the more strategic management
processes, perspectives, and tools that will be needed in the future. Key near-term task
objectives for CDOT include the following:

• To organize a task force chaired by the CDOT Deputy Director to provide leadership,

demonstrate executive buy-in, guide and coordinate actions department-wide, and

provide a focal point for strategic direction and communication of objectives and
accomplishments.

• To complete the Investment Category structure to provide the goals, targets,

performance measures, and analytic tools needed to use it to full advantage in planning,
program development, and system monitoring.

• To communicate “what is asset management” and related CDOT actions to CDOT

employees and to the Transportation Commission, stakeholders, and the public.

• To make better use of existing information technology (IT) where possible, and to

develop new IT applications and tools where needed to support asset management. This
objective is critical to the long-term success of asset management and comprises a
number of tasks that could entail significant cost for development of IT applications and
tools. A blend of organizational, planning, and developmental tasks is therefore
proposed with respect to this objective:

− To reconstitute the Information Technology Resource Team (ITRT) to provide high-

level IT expertise to the Asset Management Task Force and to represent CDOT
“customers” of IT applications and information.

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Asset Management Plan

− To charge the ITRT with developing an Information Technology Plan that

specifically addresses IT support of asset management. A key aspect of this plan
would include proposed steps for renewal or redevelopment of legacy systems, and
integration of systems in a geographic information system (GIS) platform.

− To make “better and smarter use” of existing CDOT systems and data. This
recommendation includes training to familiarize CDOT staff with existing system
capabilities that are now underutilized but that are very relevant and helpful to asset
management. It also encompasses a testing and validation phase for new or
redeveloped systems to ensure that they provide credible information and can be used
reliably in asset management business processes.

− To complement existing or proposed management systems with specialized analytic

tools that provide needed functionality for asset management and that are quick and
economical to develop and apply.

ES.5 Tiering of Assets

As an initial step toward asset management implementation, this study has also
recommended an approach to create tiers of assets. Asset tiering recognizes that
transportation assets serve different local, regional, and national needs that justify different
levels of service. Stratifying these assets helps to organize resource allocation priorities and
tradeoffs, propose meaningful target values of level of service, and provide a context for
tracking expenditures, benefits, and other consequences of investments.

A major class of infrastructure assets in terms of public visibility and share of program
budget is the state highway system. An existing basis of tiering of these assets is provided
by Federal-Aid functional classes: Interstate highways, non-Interstate National Highway
System (NHS) highways, and Other highways. This study proposes the following
additional tiers to build on existing functional class:

• Connectivity role: Intraregional, interregional, or both;

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Colorado Department of Transportation
Asset Management Plan

• Level of use in terms of intervals of traffic volume;

• Role in freight carriage: classification or level of truck usage; and

• Role in transit use.

Classification tiers have already been proposed for other modal assets. It is proposed that
these proposals be retained at this time without change until discussed further or formally
adopted by the Transportation Commission.

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Table of Contents

1.0 Introduction....................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Study Objectives, Tasks, and Scope .......................................................................................... 1
1.2 Report Organization................................................................................................................... 3
1.3 Transportation Asset Management ............................................................................................ 4
2.0 State-of-Practice at CDOT ............................................................................................. 15
2.1 Departmental Overview ........................................................................................................... 15
2.2 Transportation Policies and Program Structure ....................................................................... 22
2.3 Planning and Program Development ....................................................................................... 40
2.4 Program Delivery..................................................................................................................... 46
2.5 Management Systems and Information.................................................................................... 48
2.6 GASB Standards ...................................................................................................................... 57
3.0 Other States’ Experience................................................................................................ 59
3.1 Nature of Review ..................................................................................................................... 59
3.2 Practices Applicable to Asset Management............................................................................. 61
3.3 Challenges to Asset Management Implementation.................................................................. 70
4.0 Asset Management Plan ................................................................................................. 73
4.1 Vision....................................................................................................................................... 73
4.2 Translating Vision Into Specific Recommendations................................................................ 76
4.3 Development of the Asset Management Plan .......................................................................... 96
4.4 Implementation Plan for Near-Term Items ............................................................................ 104
4.5 Implementation Roles of the EMT and the Transportation Commission .............................. 116
5.0 Tiering of the Transportation Assets .......................................................................... 119
5.1 Introduction to Tiering........................................................................................................... 120
5.2 Other Examples of Tiering Used within CDOT .................................................................... 121
5.3 Development of Additional Tiering Perspectives for the Roadway System.......................... 128

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List of Figures

Figure 1. Framework of Transportation Asset Management ..................................................................... 11

Figure 2. Implications of Asset Management for Agency Processes and Information Flows .................. 12
Figure 3. CDOT Organizational Structure ................................................................................................. 16
Figure 4. CDOT Transportation Regions................................................................................................... 18
Figure 5. CDOT Maintenance Sections ..................................................................................................... 19
Figure 6. Transportation Commission Districts ......................................................................................... 20
Figure 7. Colorado Transportation Planning Regions................................................................................ 27
Figure 8. CDOT Project Priority Programming Process (“4P”) ................................................................ 45
Figure 9. Pontis® Modeling Framework .................................................................................................... 52
Figure 10. Current Approach to Pavement Program Development and Implementation ......................... 78
Figure 11. Improved Approach to Pavement Program Development and Implementation...................... 81
Figure 12. Current Approach to Bridge Program Development and Implementation ............................... 93
Figure 13. Improved Approach to Bridge Program Development and Implementation............................ 93
Figure 14. Overall Safety Investment Category......................................................................................... 94
Figure 15. Roadway Component of Safety ................................................................................................ 94
Figure 16. Example of Budget Scenarios and Effects on Network Condition......................................... 113
Figure 17. Identification of Points to be Plotted to Relate Condition and Needed Expenditure............. 114
Figure 18. Resulting Relationship Between Network Condition and Needed Expenditure ................... 115
Figure 19. Resulting Relationship Between Annual Expenditure and Network Condition.................... 115
Figure 20. Colorado State Highway System............................................................................................ 121
Figure 21. Statewide Significant Corridors (SSC)................................................................................... 123
Figure 22. Strategic Projects .................................................................................................................... 125
Figure 23. Colorado Airports by Functional Level.................................................................................. 126
Figure 24. Significant Rail Corridors....................................................................................................... 127
Figure 25. Proposed Interregional Corridors ........................................................................................... 132

List of Tables

Table A. Funded Statewide Programs........................................................................................................ 25

Table B. Asset Management Plan – Policy and Institutional Factors ........................................................ 98
Table C. Asset Management Plan – Planning and Programming Factors ............................................... 100
Table D. Asset Management Plan – Program Delivery Factors .............................................................. 102
Table E. Asset Management Plan – Information and Analytic Factors ................................................... 103

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1.0 Introduction

1.1 Study Objectives, Tasks, and Scope

In April 2000, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) engaged the team of
BRW, Inc., and Cambridge Systematics, Inc., to conduct a study entitled, Development of
an Asset Management Implementation Plan and a Tiered System Process for CDOT.
The objectives of this study are to review current practices in transportation asset
management at CDOT and among other DOTs that are “leaders” in the field, and to develop
from this information a CDOT Asset Management Plan and a Tiered System Process. This
Final Report documents the results of this study.

The study comprises five major tasks:

• Task A – Review Asset Management as Now Practiced at CDOT. This review

encompasses CDOT’s organizational responsibilities, procedures, and systems for
planning, program development, allocation of resources, program delivery, facility
monitoring, and reporting internally and to the Transportation Commission and the
public.

• Task B – Review Asset Management as Practiced in Five Leadership States.

Leadership states selected for interviews include Arizona, California, New York,
Pennsylvania, and Washington State. These states have significant transportation
infrastructure serving a range of customer needs in diverse conditions of climate and
terrain, and are actively pursuing improved asset management techniques.

• Task C – Develop a Tiered Structure of CDOT Transportation Assets.

Transportation assets serve different needs and justify different levels of service in a
state with as diverse a terrain, climate, demography, and degree of urbanization as
Colorado. Stratifying these assets within tiers helps to organize investment choices,
priorities, and tradeoffs, establish target levels of service, and track expenditures,
benefits, and other consequences of investments.
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Colorado Department of Transportation
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• Task D – Develop an Asset Management Plan for CDOT. The Plan has three
components:

− Vision Statement – A Vision of CDOT asset management, including its objectives,

functions, and procedures, supporting management systems and data sources, and
current CDOT accomplishments that provide a foundation for future development;

− Examples – Examples of how asset management is applied in programming and

budgeting decisions that illustrate its operation and its advantages, and provide
insights into how to tailor and implement the Plan; and

− Implementation Program – The implementation program encompasses a projected

schedule, phasing of tasks, suggested performing unit, targets and milestones,
projected benefits, and estimated budget costs.

• Task E – Prepare Final Report and Briefing Presentation. The final report and
PowerPoint briefing presentation communicate the results of the tasks above.

The scope of the study encompasses primarily state-owned transportation infrastructure,

representing transportation networks, structures, and associated features for which CDOT
has direct ownership and operating responsibility. These facilities include state roadways,
bridges, pedestrian ways, bicycle lanes, and a rail line that are on the state system.

There is also a category of state-interest transportation infrastructure, representing

other transportation facilities in which CDOT maintains an interest due to legal or funding
arrangements or the direct relevance of these facilities to statewide transportation
(evaluated on a case-by-case basis). Examples of these facilities include off-system
bridges, which are inspected by CDOT personnel; intermodal facilities that are judged to
benefit the CDOT system; and aviation facilities that are funded through CDOT’s
Aeronautics Division. These infrastructure elements will be discussed when appropriate to
asset management. However, since most critical decisions and tradeoffs by CDOT relate to
the state-owned infrastructure component, it is the state-owned facilities that will receive
most attention in this report.

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While CDOT exercises management responsibility for the state-owned facilities, the scope
and direction of its asset management role are circumscribed and influenced by several
political, legal, and institutional relationships. Policy guidance and decisions affecting
funding, options, and priorities in asset management are promulgated by a number of
governing authorities, including the Colorado Transportation Commission, the Governor
and State Legislature, and applicable state and federal administrative and regulatory bodies.
Transportation plans and programs regarding state-owned facilities must be developed in
cooperation with Colorado’s metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) and
transportation planning regions (TPR), and be informed by public opinion. A number of
public and private users depend upon the statewide transportation system for social,
commercial, and recreational purposes, including local motorists and transit riders, freight
carriers, service industries, public service organizations, and tourists. CDOT must be
responsive to its customers, and regularly engages in outreach efforts to gauge public
perceptions and degree of satisfaction with its services. Thus, while this study focuses on
CDOT roles and responsibilities in asset management, it recognizes the broader institutional
environment and set of interests that CDOT must respond to.

Within this institutional context, the Colorado Transportation Commission has expressed
significant support for asset management. This support has been evident in both the
encouragement to CDOT to undertake this study and in the comments received at the
briefing to the Commission on study findings and recommendations. The CDOT Executive
Management Team has likewise offered helpful comments and support during briefings and
workshops on asset management, as well as in interviews with individual members of the
EMT. The potential roles that can be played by the Transportation Commission and the
EMT in advancing better asset management practice are outlined in Section 4.0.

1.2 Report Organization

The report organization responds to and builds upon the project tasks above.

• The remaining parts of Section 1.0 introduce the topic of transportation asset

management. They summarize principles and characteristics of asset management,

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summarize related work to date in the U.S. and internationally, and outline current
accomplishments and challenges of implementing asset management within a U.S.
public sector transportation agency.

• Section 2.0 summarizes current asset management practice at CDOT. It describes

the characteristics of the statewide transportation system, CDOT’s organizational and

program structure, and the policies, processes, and decision-support tools relating to
asset management.

• Section 3.0 reviews transportation asset management practices in peer agencies.

This review encompasses State DOTs that are taking the lead in this formative era of
transportation asset management in the U.S., and establishes useful examples and points
of comparison for developing the CDOT Transportation Asset Management Plan.

• Section 4.0 recommends the CDOT Transportation Asset Management Plan. This

section comprises a Vision Statement, Examples of Specific Asset Management

Improvements, the overall CDOT Asset Management Plan, and an Implementation Plan
for near-term items.

• Section 5.0 presents a Tiered System for CDOT transportation infrastructure

assets. Applying the results of peer state comparisons and input from a focus group
conducted by the Project Team, it develops an approach to organizing and classifying
CDOT’s transportation infrastructure assets.

1.3 Transportation Asset Management

Related Work to Date. Asset management has been studied by overseas transportation
and public works agencies for several years. Detailed methodological handbooks and
reports have been produced, for example, in Australia and New Zealand. The subject is
currently receiving considerable attention throughout the developed world, as evidenced by
a recently completed compendium by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and

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Development (OECD) of activities of its member nations in North America, Europe, and
Asia.

Within the United States, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation
Officials (AASHTO) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) began sponsoring
a series of workshops on asset management beginning in 1996. Subsequently, AASHTO
appointed a Task Force on Transportation Asset Management, which has prepared a
Strategic Plan of activities proposed over a 10-year period.

Recently the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) initiated

Project 20-24(11), Asset Management Guidance for Transportation Agencies. This project,
scheduled to be performed in 1999-2002, will develop products that respond to several
tasks in the AASHTO Strategic Plan, including a Synthesis of current practice, a
Framework of Transportation Asset Management, a recommended program of prioritized
research proposals, and an Asset Management Guide. The following discussion of
transportation asset management is based upon concurrent work now being conducted for
Project 20-24(11).

What Is Asset Management? Transportation Asset Management represents a

strategic approach to managing transportation infrastructure. Transportation agencies
worldwide have historically exercised significant responsibilities in conceiving, building,
operating, and maintaining networks of facilities. Asset management represents more than
these combined responsibilities. It entails more than the revision of an internal procedure,
preparation of an additional report, or introduction of a new computer application. It
embodies an overarching set of principles, best practices, and applications of information to
perform management functions better, with the following strategic goals:

• To build, preserve, operate, and reinvest in facilities more cost-effectively with

improved performance;

• To deliver to an agency’s customers the best value for the public tax dollar spent; and

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Asset Management Plan

• To enhance the credibility and accountability of the transportation agency to its

authorizing body.

Asset management goes to the core of how an agency does business. The specific nature of
the change implied by asset management will vary by agency to conform to local
organizational, institutional, financial, managerial, and technological factors. Nonetheless,
a set of principles characterizes asset management generally. These principles reflect the
concept that transportation asset management is, simultaneously, a philosophy, a process,
and a set of technical tools.

Asset Management Is a Philosophy. Asset management represents an approach to

managing infrastructure that is strategic and proactive, and places a premium on good
information in all aspects and in all departmental units. Relevant principles include the
following:

• Asset management is holistic. It entails a comprehensive view across a range of assets.

It encourages consideration of a full range of options to meet problems or needs.

Tradeoffs are explicitly considered among programs, modes, or strategies.

• Asset management is driven by policy goals and objectives based upon

performance. Strategies are analyzed in terms of objective assessments of costs,

benefits, and other impacts on the transportation system and levels of service provided to
transportation users.

• Asset management takes a long-term view of infrastructure performance and cost.

The benefits of different actions are assessed throughout the infrastructure service life,
applying economic as well as technical criteria.

• Asset management is proactive. An agency has the latitude to make decisions based

on merit. Preventive strategies are encouraged where they are cost-effective.

• Asset management policy is influenced and informed by good information. This

information describes current and projected system condition and performance that

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 Colorado Department of Transportation
Asset Management Plan

would result from different policies or strategies. It also encompasses user perceptions
of system condition and performance, as obtained through surveys or focus groups.

Asset Management Is a Process. Principles of good asset management can suggest

ways in which an agency’s business processes and its organizational roles and
responsibilities can be strengthened. These process improvements can occur in those
activities prior to budget approval – i.e., planning and program development – and in the
program delivery phase subsequent to budget approval. Major principles governing process
improvements are listed below.

• Investment choices and decisions on allocating and applying resources are policy-

and performance-driven. Procedures to reach these decisions are consistent with

objective information and criteria based on merit. Performance measures consistent with
policy goals and objectives are established for management review of both system
performance and program delivery.

• Investment choices and decisions on allocating resources are based upon explicit

tradeoffs among modes, programs, or strategies. Tradeoffs assess the impacts of

more or less investment in a mode, program, or strategy, and help to craft final
recommendations on how resources will be allocated across competing needs. Managers
also understand the implicit tradeoffs in their programs and budgets, and the
consequences thereof.

• Organizational roles and responsibilities regarding asset management are

developed to overcome silo-based thinking. While strong vertical organizational units
may exist to maintain core expertise, communications and decisions involve wider
participation, as noted below.

• Asset management is interdisciplinary. Decisions on investment choices and resource

allocation are based upon expertise and judgment from several quarters of an agency.

• Asset management requires effective communication within and outside the agency.

Within the agency, strong communication channels are needed both vertically and

7
Colorado Department of Transportation
Asset Management Plan

horizontally. External communications need to inform policy makers and other

stakeholders of the status of transportation assets and recommended policies and their
benefits.

• The agency strives for more effective program delivery. The agency explores
innovative methods to deliver the range of projects and services required. All available
methods are considered, including use of departmental employees, intergovernmental
agreements, outsourcing or managed competition, and privatization.

Asset Management Is a Set of Technical Tools. Effective management systems and

complete, current, and accurate information on transportation infrastructure are practical
necessities in meeting the policy and process requirements of asset management. Good
asset management implies a systematic, integrated approach to project selection, analysis of
tradeoffs, and program and budget decisions. It also implies that the right information be
available to the right levels of management at the right times. The principles below support
the availability and application of better information to make better decisions in asset
management.

• Complete, current, and accurate information on transportation infrastructure assets,

including descriptions, location, usage, unique or specialized characteristics, functional

and other classification, and data needed for management systems as discussed below.

• An appropriate suite of management systems and databases informs the agency of

the status, trends, and needs regarding its infrastructure assets. Typical capabilities of
these systems include the following:

− Organization of information within databases describing infrastructure inventory,

condition, and performance;

− Analytic models that predict the rate of future change in condition or performance,
enabling the agency to forecast future infrastructure needs;

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 Colorado Department of Transportation
Asset Management Plan

− Decision rules or procedures for applying treatments or actions to maintain,

rehabilitate, replace, or expand transportation infrastructure, with analytic models of
resulting costs, benefits, and other impacts; and

− Reports tailored to different organizational levels of management, including senior

and executive levels, as well as for public distribution.

• Information on system performance in terms of both proposed targets and values

actually achieved in the field. These data may be obtained in a number of ways:

− Periodic surveys and assessments of system condition or levels of service;

− Customer surveys of satisfaction with system condition and agency performance; and

− Incorporation of performance measures and associated backup information within

management systems.

• Specialized technical applications that support an agency’s asset management

procedures. These will vary by agency, but may include advances such as use of
geographic information systems (GIS) as a system/data integration platform, economic
analysis applications (e.g., generalized life-cycle benefit-cost procedure), and decision-
support tools.

• Applications that assist in program and service delivery, including financial

applications (e.g., to compute “total” or “true” cost of agency and contracted services),
and management systems for construction project pipeline and construction delivery.

Asset Management Framework – Overall Approach. These principles of good

practice are embodied in an approach to asset management that is illustrated in Figure 1.
Figure 1 shows a strategic, integrated, systematic, and interdisciplinary approach to asset
management, from policy formulation through delivery and monitoring of results. Key
points to note are as follows:

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Colorado Department of Transportation
Asset Management Plan

• The approach is policy-driven. Applicable policies include those embodying system

performance goals, and broader policies with important transportation implications, such
as those specifying economic development or social or environmental initiatives.

• The analysis of options and tradeoffs is strategic, interdisciplinary, and integrated.

It encompasses a number of modes and their asset classes, rather than a singular view of
any one type of infrastructure. Policy goals and objectives are explicitly considered,
with examples in Figure 1 drawn from CDOT’s Investment Categories. Different types
of investment or expenditure are considered, cutting across programs, to identify the
strategy that provides the best performance at the lowest life-cycle cost. Quality
information is applied throughout these processes.

• Decisions on allocating departmental labor, dollar, and information resources

among programs are made by managers based upon objective analyses of merit.
These decisions respond to policy goals and objectives, are founded in objective
analyses of costs, benefits, and other impacts, and are informed by tradeoff analyses that
illustrate the consequences of allocating these resources in different ways.

• Program projects and services are delivered in the most effective way available.

Options for delivery are continually evaluated in terms of the agency’s own capabilities
and those of other providers in the public or private sectors.

• The information base for asset management is continually renewed, with feedback

for updates and improvement. Working upward from the bottom in Figure 1 to
consider the several feedback loops possible:

− Program delivery monitoring documents whether projects and services have been
delivered on time and budget, and identifies causes of problems that may require
remedy;

− System performance monitoring quantifies the results of past investment decisions,

establishes baselines for future decisions, and identifies updates needed in project
selection criteria;

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 Colorado Department of Transportation
Asset Management Plan

− System and customer surveys update information on current asset inventory,

condition, and performance, and the cost and effectiveness of project treatments and
service delivery methods for use in future analyses; and

− System performance monitoring provides the information basis for future policy
formulation and needed updates to goals and objectives.

Policy
PolicyGoals
Goalsand
andObjectives
Objectives
System
SystemPerformance
Performance Economic
Economic Social
Social&&Environmental
Environmental

Integrated
IntegratedAnalysis
AnalysisofofOptions
Optionsand
andTradeoffs
Tradeoffs

Asset Classes Goals Types of Investments

Highway Safety Capital
Bridge Preservation Operating
Transit Availability Maintenance
Aviation Mobility/Reliability
Rail Accelerate Projects
Bike & Ped

Decisions
Decisionson
onApplying
ApplyingResources,
Resources,Investment
InvestmentChoices
Choices
Financial
Financial Human
Human Information
Information

Implementation
Implementation
Agency,
Agency,Intergovernmental
Intergovernmental
Public
Public/ /Private
PrivatePartnership
Partnership
Outsource - Privatize
Outsource - Privatize

Systems Monitoring and Performance Results

Systems Monitoring and Performance Results

Figure 1. Framework of Transportation Asset Management

Implications for This Study. Asset management is a comprehensive undertaking within

an agency, since it goes to several business processes and decision points regarding a
significant component of a transportation department’s program budget. Moreover,
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Colorado Department of Transportation
Asset Management Plan

proposals for asset management improvement must be tailored to the particular policies,
management philosophies, transportation network characteristics, and organizational,
financial, institutional, and technological constraints that affect an agency’s decisions and
actions. An illustration of key areas in which asset management can affect an agency’s
activities organizationally is shown schematically in Figure 2.

Improved
Strategic Information for
Executives, Legislators, Stakeholders

Enhanced Vertical Communication

Management
Management

Management

Horizontal Coordination and Communication Management

Infrastructure

Safety, Other
Operational

Financial

Improved Technical Analysis and Effectiveness

(e.g., benefit / cost models,
predictions of performance
and outcomes, etc.)

Figure 2. Implications of Asset Management for

Agency Processes and Information Flows

Vertical elements in the center of Figure 2 signify core competencies within an

organization. For simplicity, only four such groupings of expertise are shown,
corresponding to infrastructure management, operations management, financial
management, and safety and other areas of management. In fact, each of these may
encompass several distinct subareas: e.g., infrastructure management may include skills in
design, construction, pavement management, bridge management, traffic management,

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 Colorado Department of Transportation
Asset Management Plan

track engineering and management, as well as modal specialties. From a practical

perspective, core competencies such as these will likely continue within an agency, whether
located in central offices, district or regional offices, or in some partnership arrangement
with the private sector. The goal of asset management, however, is to ensure that these
competencies are applied within an integrated, interdisciplinary environment, and that they
not be isolated “with blinders on” in a “silo” or “stovepipe” approach to problems.

Asset management seeks to strengthen organizational processes and decisions across these
core competencies. Improved processes, management systems, and analytic tools are a key
element of asset management, as discussed earlier. Within middle management and at
technical departmental levels these improvements may be visualized as new procedures,
techniques, and skills that improve effectiveness, complemented by improved analytic tools
and applications (whether stand-alone or within existing management systems), as shown at
the bottom of Figure 2. At executive levels of the organization the focus is on the
availability of improved information for decision-making and for communicating to
governing bodies, customers, and other stakeholders, as shown at the top of Figure 2.
Achieving a department-wide understanding of asset management and enabling the
interdisciplinary approaches needed requires strengthened communication – vertically
within core competencies and to executive levels, and horizontally across the department’s
organizational units and disciplines, as depicted prominently in Figure 2. Collectively, this
set of improvements enables the agency to establish and sustain a philosophy of asset
management in a practical and meaningful way.

The remainder of this report illustrates how these concepts of asset management can be
applied within Colorado DOT to develop a plan for asset management improvement.

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Asset Management Plan

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Asset Management Plan

2.0 State-of-Practice at CDOT

2.1 Departmental Overview

Transportation in Colorado. Colorado’s transportation needs are shaped by many

factors of geography, economy, and society. Colorado occupies a strategic location in the
Western United States, astride major east-west and north-south continental land and air
routes. Variations in terrain, climate, and demographic characteristics contribute to a
diverse economic base encompassing the agricultural and growing service sector in the
Eastern Plains, rapidly growing suburban areas and economic transformations in the Front
Range, and the Western Slope with its ranchlands and tourist attractions superimposed upon
largely rural areas.

These characteristics, which contribute to the economic vitality and appeal of living in or
visiting Colorado, also create challenges in meeting the state’s transportation needs. In
providing statewide transportation services, CDOT must strike a balance in meeting local,
interregional, interstate, and international-bound demands for moving passengers, freight,
and information, while addressing both urban and rural interests among its citizenry.
Statewide goals to which transportation contributes in a critical way – e.g., to accommodate
rapid growth, sustain a healthy economy, preserve the natural, scenic beauty and
environmentally sensitive areas of the state, respond to transportation needs among
different population groups, and deliver transportation services cost-effectively even under
conditions of high altitude and difficult weather – must be accounted for in CDOT’s
decisions on the allocation of resources among competing transportation investments and
services.

The remaining parts of this section will describe CDOT’s organizational structure and
policy framework, processes for planning and program development, and information
resources that define the procedural approach and culture for these decisions, and the
implications for transportation asset management.

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Asset Management Plan

CDOT Organization. The organizational structure of CDOT is depicted in Figure 3.

Governor Legislature

Transportation Commission
CDOT Executive Director
Deputy Director

Office of Policy
Office of Financial
Management and Budget
(OFMB)
Office of Public Information

Human Resources &

Administration
Transportation
■ Accounting
Development
■ Administrative Services
■ Transportation Planning ■ Procurement
■ Intermodal ■ HR, EEO, Training
■ Research ■ Information Systems
■ Facilities Management
■ Printing & Visual Communications

Chief Engineer
Aeronautics
ITS Deputy Chief
Director, Staff Branches
Engineer

Director, Staff Branches Transportation Regions

■ Business & Technical Support 1. Aurora

■ Project Development 2. Pueblo
■ Design & Construction 3. Grand Junction
■ Maintenance & Operations 4. Greeley
■ Transportation Safety & 5. Durango
Traffic Engineering 6. Denver

Figure 3. CDOT Organizational Structure

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Asset Management Plan

• The Executive Director provides overall direction and management of the Department.

He or she is assisted by the Deputy Director.

• Assisting and reporting to the Executive Director and the Deputy Director are the

Directors of the following offices: Policy (responsible for political liaison and policy
analysis support), Financial Management and Budget (OFMB), and Public
Information.

• Also reporting to the Executive Director and the Deputy Director are the heads of four

CDOT divisions:

− Division of Engineering & Maintenance, headed by the Chief Engineer. This

division is responsible for engineering services provided by the central and the
Regional offices, as explained further below.

− Division of Transportation Development (DTD), headed by a Director responsible

for transportation planning, promotion of intermodal transportation, Departmental
conformity with the Clean Air Act, collection of federally required traffic and road
inventory data, and research.

− Division of Aeronautics, headed by a Director responsible for administering

Aviation Fund revenue, assisting with Federal Aviation grants, providing technical
and administrative assistance to Colorado’s Aeronautical Board, and facilitating
refunds of taxes to governmental units operating public-use airports.

− Division of Human Resources and Administration, headed by a Director

responsible for employee services, equal opportunity, procurement, information
systems, accounting, facilities management, training, and printing and visual
communications.

• The Division of Engineering & Maintenance encompasses a number of functions and

services:

− The Director, Staff Branches, oversees CDOT central office branches that provide
technical expertise and program guidance in roadway and bridge design, construction,

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Colorado Department of Transportation
Asset Management Plan

maintenance and operations, safety, right-of-way, environmental services, and

materials testing.

− The Chief Engineer and his/her deputy oversee the activities of the Staff Branches
and the construction and maintenance activities in Colorado’s six transportation
Regions (discussed below).

− The Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Program oversees departmental

implementation of ITS technology.

• CDOT delivery of projects and services and liaison with regional planning bodies and

other local constituencies is handled organizationally through six CDOT

Transportation Regions, as shown in Figure 4. Each Region is headed by a Regional
Transportation Director (RTD), who oversees assigned engineering and
maintenance/operations staffs.

Figure 4. CDOT Transportation Regions

• CDOT maintenance forces within each Region are organized within maintenance

sections that are part of the Regional organization, as shown in Figure 5.

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Asset Management Plan

Figure 5. CDOT Maintenance Sections

Transportation Commission. The Transportation Commission formulates policy and

provides guidance to CDOT regarding the construction, maintenance, and management of
state highways and transportation systems. The Transportation Commission comprises 11
members who are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate for staggered
four-year terms. Each commissioner represents one of the 11 districts shown in Figure 6.

The role of the Transportation Commission in establishing transportation policy and

providing overall guidance is exercised in a number of ways. The Transportation
Commission meets monthly with CDOT executives and managers to review program status,
provide overall program direction and priorities, and adopt CDOT programs and budgets.
Policy directives and guidance are issued from time to time, and examples will be given
shortly. The Transportation Commission also advises the Governor and the General
Assembly on transportation policy.

At a strategic level, the Commission meets with CDOT executives at two- to three-year
intervals to review systematically the 20-year planned allocation of resources among
programs, to re-examine and update policies and program priorities, and to explore
tradeoffs in proposed funding among programs. Descriptions of the structure and

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Colorado Department of Transportation
Asset Management Plan

Figure 6. Transportation Commission Districts

composition of CDOT transportation programs that define the potential options that can be
considered in these tradeoffs are given in later sections.

Statewide Transportation Assets. CDOT now manages programs and pass-through

funding that encompass a number of transportation assets: roads and bridges, transit and
rail track and facilities, airports, and bicycle and pedestrian ways. These assets are
reviewed below in terms of Transportation Commission policies and CDOT responsibilities
to identify the scope and focus of the transportation assets that are addressed in this report.

• State highways constitute the primary state-owned transportation assets under the

jurisdiction of CDOT, as discussed in Section 1.0.

• The Transportation Commission has identified criteria for determining State Significant

Rail Corridors. It has also formulated a Rail Corridor Preservation Policy that could
result in CDOT “ownership” of either abandoned rail lines or rights-of-way for proposed
new rail lines to mitigate abandonment of existing service or to preserve future
transportation options in an existing corridor. This policy currently results in CDOT
ownership of one rail line, which is now leased to an operating company.

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Asset Management Plan

• Transit services in Colorado are provided by local or regional operators to meet the

needs of the general public in urban, rural, intercity, and resort areas/routes, and to
provide specialized services for elderly and disabled riders. CDOT does not provide any
state funds for transit, but administers federal funds to transit operators serving rural
areas and elderly and disadvantaged populations. In the context of Section 1.0, transit
overall is a mode of “state interest” to CDOT.

• The Transportation Commission and CDOT view bicycle and pedestrian ways as

integral components of the state’s multimodal transportation system. Routes designated

by the Transportation Commission as High-Priority Bicycle Corridors provide a focus
for CDOT funding of shoulder improvements or resurfacing when highway/bridge
construction, rehabilitation, or widening projects are scoped. Bicycle and pedestrian
projects may also be included in Regional Priorities funded by CDOT.

• Colorado’s commercial and general aviation airports are owned and operated by local

governments, with funding assistance from both federal (Federal Aviation

Administration, or FAA) and state (Colorado Aeronautical Board) grants. Airports are
of state-interest to CDOT given the importance of air transportation to the local
economy, mobility, and accessibility of locations throughout the state. CDOT provides
technical and planning assistance to the Aeronautical Board and local and regional
agencies regarding airport needs.

• Movement of information within a multimodal context is interpreted by the

Transportation Commission to apply specifically to Intelligent Transportation

Systems (ITS) technology and to modern communications and information linkages
among CDOT buildings and operations centers.

The focus of this report is primarily on the state highway assets for which CDOT has
ownership and operating responsibility and which represent significant shares of CDOT
programs and budgets. Investments and service improvements in the highway network are
assumed to include associated improvements in pedestrian and bicycle facilities or ITS
devices where appropriate, as well as rail corridor preservation actions that may relate to a

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Asset Management Plan

highway corridor. Asset management decisions affecting highways will also affect the
quality of transit service that can be provided by transit operators, and the accessibility of
aviation facilities to passenger and freight motorists.

2.2 Transportation Policies and Program Structure

CDOT Mission and Statewide Transportation Policies. The Colorado

Transportation Commission from time to time issues policy directives to guide CDOT
program decisions and priorities and to articulate the underlying values that CDOT stands
for and pursues in its daily work. Policy Directive 14, adopted in 1996, defines CDOT’s
mission “to provide the best multimodal transportation system for Colorado that most
effectively moves people, goods, and information.” Policy directive 14 also enumerates a
set of values to guide CDOT in fulfilling its mission: e.g., to provide leadership in
transportation while working in partnership with others, to strive for quality while taking
pride in self and in work and seeking to improve personal skills and talents, to use resources
wisely, and to make decisions that are compatible with Colorado’s quality-of-life,
environmental, and economic goals.

These value statements reiterate many key precepts of the comprehensive Statewide
Transportation Policies that were adopted by the Transportation Commission in Policy
Directive 13 (1994). The essential principles of these statewide policies are summarized
below:

• Customer Focus – Strengthen outreach and communication to the public, and solicit

and respond to views of those affected by transportation performance, improvements,

and financing;

• Leadership – Bring together varied interests, and apply CDOT’s statewide perspective

and expertise to reach optimal transportation solutions together;

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 Colorado Department of Transportation
Asset Management Plan

• Management of the Transportation System – Facilitate the efficient movement of

people, goods, information, and services through a unified transportation system,

considering the full range of alternatives to meeting customer needs;

• Intermodalism – Develop a balanced transportation system that meets the needs of

diverse sets of customers by taking advantage of the efficiencies of appropriate modes,

and by ensuring connectivity and interaction among these modes;

• Partnership – Form partnerships (both formal and informal) to leverage CDOT’s

limited resources and to tap new sources of support for transportation development;

• Integrate Regional and Statewide Priorities – Collaborate with partners to integrate

local, regional, and statewide transportation priorities;

• Finance – Pursue diverse, cooperative funding mechanisms that are reliable, equitable,

flexible, adequate, and acceptable; enhance financial management to provide cost

accountability for achieving target benchmarks;

• Safety – Promote transportation safety to road users and workers through education,

engineering, and enforcement;

• Balance Quality of Life Factors – Work with local, regional, and state interests to

balance the long-range transportation, land use, and quality of life needs in meeting
objectives of mobility, economic vitality, and environmental preservation;

• Environment – Promote a transportation system that is environmentally responsible in

its planning, design, construction, maintenance, and operation; consider all reasonable
alternatives to avoid or minimize adverse effects;

• Accessibility – Promote a transportation system that is accessible to users, including the

transportation disadvantaged; accessibility encompasses choice of modes, good

connections, ease of use, relative cost, and proximity and frequency of service; and

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Colorado Department of Transportation
Asset Management Plan

• Social Responsibility – Provide a safe, healthy, nondiscriminatory work environment

for employees; follow fair business practices; keep the public welfare continually in
mind in making decisions.

Many of these policy statements echo themes that are also identified with principles of good
asset management. The issue in outlining an asset management plan then becomes one of
how these policies are translated into specific program elements and procedures used by
CDOT.

To develop this information, we first summarize below the categories of existing

transportation programs managed by CDOT, their objectives, and relative priority.
Commission policies and guidelines regarding these programs will also be discussed, since
collectively these define key elements of CDOT’s existing decision-making culture
regarding transportation asset management.

A unique approach pioneered by CDOT has been to define “Investment Categories” that
impose a policy- and performance-oriented view of transportation programs, and that
enable the Department to analyze cross-program tradeoffs serving a particular objective.
Discussion of these program elements is followed by overviews of the CDOT planning and
program development processes, mechanisms and management of program delivery, and
decision support provided by management systems and related databases.

Statewide Programs. State and federal funds are distributed among several programs
managed by CDOT that address statewide transportation needs. These funded statewide
programs are listed in Table A, identifying for each program the scope of work, applicable
program goals or targets, and remarks on sunset provisions or plans for further development
of program elements such as analytic models. The nature of program goals or targets is
identified where applicable as performance-based (i.e., reflected in a measurable
characteristic of the transportation system), financial (i.e., based upon an annual
expenditure level approved by the Transportation Commission and reflected in Colorado’s
Statewide Transportation Plan), or both. Certain programs respond to specific requirements
of the federal Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) of 1991 or the

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 Colorado Department of Transportation
Asset Management Plan

Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) of 1998, as noted. Management
system support of program performance measures and project selection decisions are
identified regarding CDOT’s pavement management system (PMS) and Pontis® bridge
management system (BMS).

Table A. Funded Statewide Programs

Program Title and Scope Goals or Targets, Other Remarks

Strategic Transportation Investment Strategic projects selected by Transportation

Program (“7th Pot”) Commission for accelerated funding and
completion
28 long-term, high-priority transportation
projects

Surface Treatment Program Performance-based goal of at least 60

percent of pavements statewide in good or
Resurfacing and rehabilitation of state fair condition; individual condition targets
highway pavements defined by highway system; performance-
based project selection based on PMS
estimates of remaining service life

Bridge Program Financial targets established for

rehabilitation and replacement of on-system
Bridge rehabilitation or replacement to bridges and inspection of on- and off-system
address structural and functional bridges; future enhancements to Pontis®
deficiencies BMS models/usage will allow performance-
based goals in terms of structural and
functional sufficiency related to funding
needs; performance-based project selection
assisted by Pontis® BMS

Rest Area Program Financial targets established for work on

priority rest areas; program to sunset in FY
Rehabilitation, reconstruction, or relocation 2004 when completed
of existing rest areas

Noise Barrier Program Financial targets established for identified

locations; due to sunset in FY 2002 when
Installation of noise barriers to address completed
significant noise impacts on federal
highways

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Colorado Department of Transportation
Asset Management Plan

Table A. Funded Statewide Programs (continued)

Program Title and Scope Goals or Targets, Other Remarks

Small Urban Program Transition program to cushion impact of

ISTEA’s elimination of Federal Aid Urban
Funding for Small Urban Areas to fulfill System (FAUS) funding; financial targets
Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) established and distributed by population-
commitments based formula; program to sunset in 2004

Safety Program Performance-based reduction in motor

vehicle crashes, injuries, and fatalities on the
Highway feature improvements and driver state highway system tied to financial targets
behavior and enforcement programs to
reduce accident rates and increase seat belt
use

Maintenance Program Performance-based target levels of service

set by Transportation Commission
Maintenance services for roadways, bridges, corresponding to projected facility condition
roadsides, tunnels, snow and ice control, and degree of response to storms or
traffic appurtenances, rest areas incidents

Operations Program Funding levels set by Transportation

Commission to deliver programs, maintain
CDOT administrative and engineering CDOT facilities, etc.
operations: e.g., administration, aeronautics,
program support, transit support, workers
compensation insurance, gaming funds,
CDOT equipment and property, engineering
program, etc.

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Financial targets established and tied to

priority projects/locations.
Installation, integration, and maintenance of
ITS technology, including the Traffic
Operations Center and the Colorado
Transportation Management System

The Strategic Transportation Investment Program is listed first in Table A. This program
addresses projects of significant, long-term importance in which major mobility, safety, or

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 Colorado Department of Transportation
Asset Management Plan

system quality improvements have been given high priority by the Transportation
Commission. As this program is given high priority in the allocation of statewide funds, it
is sometimes identified separately from the other funded statewide programs.

Regional Programs. CDOT works cooperatively with Colorado’s 15 Transportation

Planning Regions (TPRs, Figure 7) to develop regional programs that meet statewide and
regional mobility, safety, and environmental needs. Funds available for regional programs
are determined after statewide funding needs have been met. Regional programs are
organized in the following categories:

Figure 7. Colorado Transportation Planning Regions

• CMAQ – The Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) Improvement Program is

a federal program that directs funds to transportation projects in Clean Air Act non-
attainment areas for ozone and carbon monoxide. Federal funds are distributed on the
basis of each state’s share of the population in non-attainment areas, weighted by degree
of air pollution. Within Colorado the funds are distributed based upon the respective

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Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) Air Quality Conformity Plans, plus funding
to mitigate particulate (PM10) non-attainment in several rural areas.

• STP – Federal Surface Transportation Program (STP) funds are distributed by federal

formula among several objectives:

− 10 percent set-aside for Safety and 10 percent set-aside for Enhancements;

− A division of 50 percent of the funds between the state’s Transportation Management

Areas (TMAs: urbanized areas with population greater than 200,000)1 and other
areas of the state, in proportion to the relative share of the state’s population in each
of these two groups; and

− The remaining 30 percent for use in any area of the state.

• STP Enhancements – Enhancements encompass a number of improvements including

pedestrian and bicycle facilities, scenic or historic projects, landscaping and

beautification, preservation of abandoned rail corridors, archaeological planning and
research, and mitigation of water pollution due to highway runoff. Federal funding is 10
percent of STP funds, as noted above. Distribution within CDOT to Regions is by
formula2; the Regional Transportation Director works with local entities to determine
specific project selection and funding levels.

• Other Regional Construction Priorities – This program encompasses primarily

mobility and safety improvements accomplished through reconstruction, restoration, and

rehabilitation; major and minor highway widening; new construction; roadway and
operational improvements; and transportation safety management. The distribution of
funds among Regions applies the same formula as that used for Enhancements.

1
The TMAs in Colorado include Denver and Colorado Springs.
2
The weighted formula is as follows: 45 percent based on vehicle miles of travel (VMT), 40 percent based on
lane miles, and 15 percent based on truck miles of travel.

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Asset Management Plan

Transportation Commission Guidance. In addition to broad statewide transportation

policy statements such as those cited earlier, the Transportation Commission provides more
specific policy direction and guidance on particular transportation programs and initiatives.
These guidelines in particular strongly influence the “culture” at CDOT regarding asset
management decisions in terms of overall philosophy and options that may realistically be
considered. Current guidance includes the following items excerpted from The 2020
Statewide Transportation Plan: Investing in Colorado’s Future, which have been
grouped informally under the indicated headings:

Classifying and Planning the Transportation System

• The Transportation Commission recognizes the value of a tiered transportation system to

aid in optimizing investment and supports the development of performance objectives

appropriate to the role facilities play in the transportation system.

• Planning procedures to investigate alternatives for corridor improvements should be

updated to ensure that the most efficient use is made of available resources and
opportunities in the corridor planning process.

• The role of the Transportation Commission in corridor planning should be clarified:

Any corridor study affecting the state highway system should receive Commission
approval prior to implementation, to improve coordination of planned actions.

• Given current resources, the Transportation Commission will continue its high priority

on preservation, enhancement, and maintenance of the existing infrastructure. However,

the Commission recognizes that judicious expansion of the state transportation system
may be necessary to respond to projected growth. Expansion may include increases in
current corridor capacity, addition of new corridors, or redesignation of local roads.
Additions to the state system must be consistent with the role and function of the state
highway system and are contingent upon availability of funds, an exchange of facilities
with local governments, or partnerships with public and private entities.

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• The Commission has directed that a high tier of priority bicycle corridors be identified to

potentially help focus limited resources to those facilities with the greatest need and
benefit.

Modal Flexibility

• The Transportation Commission recognizes the role of alternative modes in addressing

mobility needs, and it supports using federal and Senate Bill 99-1 funding flexibility for
strategic projects. The Transportation Commission supports modal flexibility for
existing and new transportation revenues within constitutional, legislative, and
regulatory constraints and the Commission’s program priorities.

• The Transportation Commission recognizes and will support the various roles of

CDOT’s planning partners and of transportation providers in coordinating an integrated,

intermodal transportation system for Colorado.

• Recognizing the importance of transit as an integral part of Colorado’s transportation

system, the Transportation Commission supports the development of new funding

sources to supplement local transit capital needs and to fund intermodal projects that
benefit the state’s transportation system.

• The Commission supports using Other Regional Priority funds for alternative mode

projects that benefit the state’s highway system and that are prioritized through the
regional planning process.

Environmental Policy Guidance

• The Transportation Commission supports proactive techniques that mitigate

transportation system impacts on the environment by developing strategies that:

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− Comprehensively address the anticipated environmental impacts of the state

transportation system;

− Consider project enhancements in affected communities in a cost-effective manner

that is consistent with the mission of CDOT; and

− Expedite project development.

Relationship to Off-System Facilities

• The Commission recognizes the significant demands placed on local governments to

provide and maintain municipal and county roads and bridges. It supports continued
sharing, as prescribed by existing formula, of the Highway User Tax Fund (HUTF) and
any increases to the HUTF. In addition, the Commission supports sharing new sources
of voter-approved statewide transportation revenues with local governments.

Telecommunications Policy

• Recognizing both the potential importance of telecommunications to the state’s

transportation system in the future and the paramount role of the private sector in its
development, the Transportation Commission takes the following positions:

− It does not intend to compete with private industry in providing telecommunications

services to the public;

− CDOT telecommunications activities will accordingly be limited to the deployment of

Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) projects and programs, and in partnership
with the private sector, providing telecommunications infrastructure to CDOT
facilities statewide; and

− Regarding the role of ITS in the regional and statewide planning process, the MPOs
and Regional Planning Commissions (RPCs) are encouraged to consider ITS projects
within their regional transportation plans. Transportation-related ITS projects are
eligible to compete for Other Regional Priority funds. The Commission supports

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commitment to coordination and planning among the state, local governments, and
private providers.

Investment Categories. Program Investment Categories enable CDOT and the

Transportation Commission to relate statewide programs to explicit policy goals and
objectives, monitor progress and provide accountability through defined performance
measures, and structure tradeoffs among programs to evaluate investment choices and their
impacts on system performance and customer satisfaction. While other DOTs in the U.S.
have likewise created policy-responsive and performance-based approaches to planning and
programming, the CDOT approach is unique in that Investment Categories encompass all
statewide transportation programs – maintenance and operating as well as capital. The
definition of elements (such as performance measures) for the Investment Categories is still
evolving. Nonetheless, the Investment Categories have already provided a useful
framework for planning, programming, and resource allocation decisions by the
Transportation Commission and CDOT, and the Investment Category structure will help
frame several of the CDOT activities in transportation asset management recommended
later in this report.

Five Investment Categories have been defined in the CDOT approach: Mobility, System
Quality, Safety, Strategic Projects, and Program Delivery. Key elements of each are
described in the following sections.3

3
The information on CDOT Investment Categories is based upon the following CDOT sources:
The 2020 Statewide Transportation Plan: Investing in Colorado’s Future (DRAFT), July 5, 2000;
Preliminary Performance Report, December 1999;
Strategic Plan and Budget for Fiscal Year 2000-01, April 20, 2000;
Presentation of the Department-wide Objectives, prepared for CDOT and the Transportation Commission
by Arthur Andersen, June 21, 2000;
CDOT System Quality Investment Category, prepared for CDOT DTD by In Motion, Inc. and Cambridge
Systematics, Inc., January 15, 1999.

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Mobility Investment Category

• Goals

− Improve mobility
− Increase travel reliability

• Objectives
− Seek external customer feedback to improve functional and regional delivery of
services
− Preserve transportation choices as a part of an integrated statewide transportation
planning process
− Maximize efficiency of the existing infrastructure prior to adding new capacity
− Ensure environmental stewardship of the transportation system
− Implement transportation improvements that enhance the quality of life and promote
community values

• Program Components within Mobility Category

− Highway Performance
− Alternate Modes
− Travel Demand Management
− Facility Management
− Weather Response
− Transit: Pass-through of FTA funds to transit agencies

• Current Mobility Performance Measures

− Roadway Congestion Index and newer Travel Rate Index
− Number of road closures by closure type
− Duration of road closures by closure type
− Customer perception of travel time variability

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• Other Possible Mobility Performance Measures

− Congested person-miles traveled
− Congested freight ton-miles traveled
− Percent of travel needs met
− Rate of growth in motor vehicle emissions
− Rate of growth in annual vehicle miles of travel (VMT)

System Quality Investment Category

• Goals
− Preserve the transportation system
− Keep the system available and safe for travel

• Objectives
− Enhance and maintain the transportation system to ensure maximum useful life
− Preserve and maintain the existing system prior to long-term construction investments
− Develop a “travel friendly” transportation system that incorporates customer desires
− Ensure that investments into the transportation system sustain and/or improve quality
of life

• Program Components within System Quality Category

− Pavement
− Bridge
− Roadside Facilities
− Roadside Appearance
− Rest Areas
− Traffic Operations Devices
− Major Tunnels
− Other Transportation Modes

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• Current System Quality Performance Measures

− Pavement surface condition rating of fair or better
− Bridge sufficiency rating of fair or better
− Bridge needs versus programmed work, by on-system and off-system bridges
− Maintenance condition survey (current level of service) for preservation activities

• Other Possible System Quality Performance Measures

− Return on investment for quality-of-life sites

Safety Investment Category

• Goal
− Reduce transportation-related crashes, injuries, and fatalities, and the associated loss
to society

• Objectives
− Reduce the rate and severity of transportation-related incidents
− Promote the education and awareness of safe driving behavior
− Emphasize applicable safety features consistent with population growth

• Program Components within Safety Category

− Safe Driving Behavior
− Roadway Safety Characteristics

• Current Safety Performance Measures

− (Reductions in) statewide fatal crash rate, statewide injury crash rate, and statewide
total crash rate
− Customer perceptions of CDOT’s safety activities

• Other Possible Safety Performance Measures

− Alcohol-related incidents compared to statewide incident rate
− Incidents involving seatbelt usage compared to statewide incident rate

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− Return on investment for designated improvement sites

− Corridor safety assessment

Strategic Projects Investment Category

• Goals
− Accelerate the completion of the projects
− Increase investment in the program

• Objectives
− Promote partnerships with all governments to enhance working relationships
− Accelerate strategic project delivery while minimizing the impact to all other
objectives
− Prepare transportation needs for Colorado’s future: Preserve options to anticipate
Colorado’s future transportation needs in major mobility corridors
− Ensure CDOT’s bonding eligibility to secure future funding levels

• Program Components within Strategic Projects Category

− Currently 28 strategic project corridors
− Additional strategic projects now being contemplated

• Current Strategic Project Performance Measures

− Funds budgeted, encumbered, and expended for each project
− Estimated completion dates and status of each project

• Other Possible Strategic Project Performance Measures

− Percent advertisement (“ad”) dates met on-time, within 30 days, 60 days, or beyond
60 days
− Days to complete payment processing and billing compared to indenture and
continuing disclosure

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Program Delivery Investment Category

• Goals
− Deliver high-quality products and services in a timely fashion
− Attract and retain an effective and qualified workforce
− Foster an environment that respects workforce diversity

• Objectives
− Maintain fiscal integrity to CDOT through timely encumbrance of funds and project
delivery
− Create a funding environment that preserves the base while pursuing new sources
− Ensure timely product and service delivery
− Identify innovative human resource solutions that maximize existing resources to
meet business needs
− Create public confidence in departmental accountability
− Incorporate education in project development and implementation
− Develop planning processes that enhance future project development
− Maintain a viable service industry to create a competitive environment

• Program Components within Program Delivery Category

− Strategic Support – functions that set, advocate, and communicate strategic
direction – e.g., Policy Analysis, Public Relations
− General Support – functions required to support day-to-day operations – e.g.,
Information Systems, Administrative Services, Procurement, Human Resources, and
Financial Management and Budget
− Program Support – functions that are unique to the business of a public department
of transportation – e.g., Transportation Development, Right-of-Way services,
Environmental Review, and Project Development
− Facilities and Equipment – functions associated with the maintenance, operation,
replacement, or upgrading of CDOT’s buildings, vehicles, and other equipment
− Data Collection – functions associated with CDOT’s data collection programs

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• Program Delivery Performance Measures

− None defined at Investment Category level
− Performance measures defined at Program Level (i.e., for individual Program
Components above)

Relating Programs to Investment Categories. The Investment Category structure

provides a framework for organizing the statewide and regional programs with respect to
their policy goals, objectives, and performance measures. While this relationship in many
cases is straightforward, for programs like Highway Maintenance the relationship is
complicated by the diversity of maintenance activities and the resulting applicability of the
Maintenance Program to several Investment Categories. To illustrate the relationship
between funded programs and Investment Categories, consider the System Quality
Investment Category and its several Program Components or Areas. The constituent
funded programs in each Program Component are listed as bullet items.

Statewide Programs in System Quality Investment Category

• Pavement Program Component

− Surface Treatment Program

− Portions of Roadway Reconstruction Program involving rebuilding of roadway and
base
− Maintenance Program, Surface Maintenance (Activity Series 150)

• Bridge Program Component

− Bridge Program
− Maintenance Program, Structures Maintenance (Activity Series 350)

• Roadside Facilities Program Component

− Noise Barrier Program
− Maintenance Program, Roadside Facilities (Activity Series 200)
− Maintenance Program, Minor Tunnels (Activity Series 500, excluding Eisenhower-
Johnson and Hanging Lake Tunnels)

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• Roadside Appearance
− Maintenance Program, Roadside Facilities (Activity Series 250)

• Rest Areas
− Rest Area Program
− Maintenance Program, Rest Area Buildings (Activity 461), and that portion of
maintenance activities for roadway surface, roadside facilities, and roadside
appearance performed in rest areas

• Traffic Operations Devices

− Maintenance Program, Traffic Services (Activity Series 300)
− Operations Program/Engineering, that portion devoted to Region Traffic
Engineering and Traffic Operations Centers

• Major Tunnels
− Maintenance Program, Tunnel Maintenance (Activity Series 500), that portion
devoted to Eisenhower-Johnson and Hanging Lake Tunnels

• Other Transportation Modes

− Aviation Pavement Program

A program like Maintenance has work that is distributed not only among several Program
Components of System Quality, but also among other Investment Categories – Mobility,
Safety, and Program Delivery. Explicit definition of these relationships maintains the
financial and programmatic integrity of the Investment Category approach. It also makes
possible the definition of appropriate performance measures at each level of the Investment
Category structure:

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• Investment-level performance measures defined for the entire Investment Category;

• Program-level performance measures defined for each Program Component within the

Investment Category; and

• Service-delivery-level performance measures defined for each constituent of a Program

Component (e.g., measures appropriate to a specific funded program, or levels of service

related to the appropriate maintenance activities).

2.3 Planning and Program Development

The development of the Statewide Transportation Plan and the State Transportation
Improvement Program (STIP) are critical to shaping CDOT’s approach to asset
management. The following sections summarize organizational roles and key business
processes and decision points involved.

Statewide Transportation Plan. The Statewide Transportation Plan fulfills CDOT’s

responsibilities under ISTEA and TEA-21 to develop and periodically update a long-range,
multimodal, fiscally constrained transportation plan in cooperation with RPCs in each of
the 15 TPRs. CDOT’s first Statewide Plan was developed in 1996; the current update (year
2000) analyzes needs and priorities through 2020. The Plan identifies both statewide and
regional transportation needs, prioritized to meet fiscal constraints that reflect current 20-
year revenue projections.

The Statewide Transportation Plan builds upon the regional plans prepared by the RPCs.
Regional plan development considers all applicable modes, including roads, transit, rail,
aviation, intermodal connections, telecommunications, travel demand strategies, and
bicycle and pedestrian facilities. Objectives of proposed regional projects include mobility
and accessibility improvements, promotion of economic growth and development,
environmental protection, consistency with the desired quality of life, and contribution to
the integrity of a transportation system that meets the TPR’s needs. Identification of
candidate projects typically entails a number of steps:

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• A review of needs and priorities from the previous plan;

• Adjustments for projects that have since been undertaken or included in the STIP;

• Identification of current issues and forecast needs; and

• Consideration of the policies, goals, objectives, and funding targets and constraints

identified for the current planning process.

The RPCs review their prioritized needs with the CDOT Regional Transportation Director,
who then compiles an overall list of prioritized lists of projects from all TPRs within that
Region. Outreach meetings held by CDOT throughout the state provide public input on
implications of current policy, high-priority unfunded needs, and desired transportation
strategies. Recommended plans submitted by the six CDOT Regions are reviewed by the
Statewide Planning Unit and combined with the Transportation Commission’s funded
statewide programs (Table A) to produce the fiscally constrained Statewide Transportation
Plan. The Statewide Transportation Plan is project-based, in that the list of projects
included in the Plan are explicitly identified in the Fiscally Constrained Project Appendix.
Other proposed projects that cannot be funded in the current planning cycle are listed in a
separate Unfunded Long-Range Project Appendix.

While the Statewide Plan is required to be fiscally constrained (i.e., to represent 20-year
needs that are realistic in light of projected revenue), CDOT takes steps to encourage
project selection based upon merit rather than just eligibility for available funding in a
particular program. It does so by aggregating available funds and allocating the pooled
funds to programs without specifically relating a funding source to a particular program or
project. CDOT then applies a “highest use” concept to draw down available funds for
eligible programs by highest system first (e.g., Interstate highway funds, followed by NHS
funds, etc.), assuring that outside funding sources are fully applied.

The Statewide Transportation Plan serves several important functions in subsequent

program development and policy review:

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• It translates statewide transportation policy into explicit long-range priorities and

resource allocations of anticipated revenue by the Transportation Commission.

• It consolidates both statewide and regional long-range needs within a single, coordinated

planning document identifying program funding targets and specific project selections in
the Fiscally Constrained Project Appendix.

• It provides the basis for programming of the six-year STIP and for program budget

development in individual fiscal years.

• It establishes a baseline for periodic review of program status, policy guidance, and

resource allocation by the Transportation Commission and CDOT, and for amendment
or minor updates of the Plan, if needed, prior to the full update at six-year intervals.

• The Plan represents a consistent outlook and methodology, but is flexible in addressing

the diverse needs of geographic areas of the state.

− It can be amended over time to reflect changed conditions, needs, or policy

imperatives.

− Where additional studies are needed (e.g., corridor studies or specialized studies of
modal options or of passenger or freight transportation needs), the Plan can
accommodate “place-holders” to represent potential projects addressing these needs.

− CDOT assists TPRs by providing data on project transportation demand (from CDOT
DTD) and anticipated funding targets by program (from CDOT OFMB).

• It defines the agenda, priorities, policy goals, and partnership arrangements for

subsequent CDOT actions in building, preserving, operating, and maintaining the

statewide transportation system.

• It brings together many of the key decisions on policy, process, and information needed

for transportation asset management.

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STIP and Budget Development – Overall Program Development. The Statewide

Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) is a six-year projection of multimodal state
transportation projects organized by statewide/regional program and funding source,
including all state highway and transit projects. The STIP must be fiscally constrained and
consistent with the Statewide Transportation Plan; only those projects included in the Plan
may be listed in the STIP. The current STIP, which is the first six-year program produced
under Colorado’s 2020 Statewide Plan, covers FY 2001 through FY 2006. The STIP is a
staged program: Proposed project expenditures in the first half of the program are
identified for each of the fiscal years 2001 through 2003; in the second half of the program,
only aggregate three-year amounts are shown for FY 2004-2006.

The process for generating the Regional components of the STIP is illustrated in Figure 8,
and is referred to as Colorado’s Project Priority Programming Process (“4P”) or,
traditionally, as the “County Hearing Process.” An updated process was instituted in 1994
to respond to program development requirements in both state and federal law with respect
to regions and metropolitan areas. The STIP is updated according to this process every two
years.

Statewide funded program components of the STIP are developed directly by CDOT
Regional and headquarters staff with the help of management system analyses,
infrastructure condition assessments, performance measures, and Maintenance Program
levels of service. Investment choices are investigated within the context of the Investment
Category structure discussed earlier. Statewide programs are not subject to the 4P process.

The remainder of the discussion focuses on the Regional component of the STIP that is
addressed through the 4P process in Figure 8.

4P Process. STIP development at the Region level builds upon draft Transportation
Improvement Plans (TIPs) developed or updated in each TPR, consistent with the Statewide
Transportation Plan. TIP development takes place at county or regional meetings
designated in blocks A through C of Figure 8. County and municipal officials, the Regional
Planning Commission, other public officials or stakeholders, and interested individuals or

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organizations may attend these meetings, with required attendance by the appropriate
Transportation Commissioner(s) and Regional Transportation Director. The purpose of
these meetings is to reach consensus on projects that will be included in the TIP and the
STIP, consistent with funding targets and the Statewide Plan.

These meetings also afford the opportunity for CDOT to work with designated
Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) to develop metro-area TIPs as required by
ISTEA and TEA-21. MPOs in Colorado are designated in the Denver region
(Denver/Boulder/Longmont), Colorado Springs, Fort Collins/Greeley, Pueblo, and Grand
Junction.4 In those TPRs that contain an MPO, the MPO takes the lead in developing the
TIP for the urbanized area, and that TIP is reflected in the STIP. For other areas of the TPR
outside the urban boundaries, CDOT takes the lead in developing the TIP for that area in
cooperation with the MPO.

The next steps in Figure 8 relate to checks of consistency of the TIPs and the STIP with the
Statewide Transportation Plan. A STIP project must be included in the Statewide Plan.
Among other criteria, if the project cost estimate in the STIP does not exceed the Statewide
Plan estimate by more than 30 percent after inflation is accounted for, the STIP project is
judged to be consistent with the Plan.

Final steps in the process in Figure 8 include a statewide meeting on the draft STIP chaired
by the Transportation Commission; approvals of MPO TIPs by MPO boards and the
Governor; adoption of the final STIP by the Transportation Commission; and submittal of
the STIP to the FHWA and FTA for approval.

4
MPOs in the Denver region, Colorado Springs, and Fort Collins/Greeley represent air quality non-attainment
areas, a designation that imposes restrictions on projects that can be approved in those areas, and requires
updating of the metropolitan transportation plan every three years rather than six years.

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Figure 8. CDOT Project Priority Programming Process (“4P”)

Budget. Project amounts listed in the first year of the STIP constitute CDOT’s program
budget for that fiscal year. A project must be included in the STIP in order to be budgeted.

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2.4 Program Delivery

Mechanisms. CDOT has shown a willingness to use a number of mechanisms of program

or project delivery to meet the requirements of particular situations: e.g., need for
specialized skills, unique complexity or time requirements of a project, lack of suitable
resources in CDOT, or desire to achieve greater cost economy. Examples of delivery
mechanisms used by CDOT that go beyond conventional approaches to construction and
maintenance projects include the following:

• Adoption of a “cradle to grave” project management approach in which Regional

engineering and project staff are organized within Program Engineer Units combining
traditional pre-construction and construction activities. Project Teams are now
responsible for projects from inception to completion, and are expected to provide a
more holistic, coordinated, and timely approach to project management.

• Use of innovative construction contracting mechanisms (design-build) and financing

agreements among federal, state, and regional/local agencies on the highway and transit
components of the Southeast Corridor Project, one of the 28 Strategic Transportation
Investment Projects.

• Use of intergovernmental agreements and contracts with the private sector to perform

maintenance services in situations where work is more economically or conveniently

done by these other entities.

These mechanisms indicate flexibility in addressing unique project needs and a desire for
long-term improvement through the definition of Program Engineer Units and Project
Teams. However, accountability for achieving the intended goals of a program and for
comparing different methods of delivery depend upon reliable statistics on target versus
achieved results, and methods to deal with changed conditions when they occur. These
matters are typically addressed in DOTs through tracking of program delivery and
amendments of project scope, time, and cost when needed.

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Program Tracking and Amendment. CDOT’s financial revenues and expenditures are
monitored with the help of the Colorado Financial Reporting System (COFRS). COFRS
records all CDOT receipts and expenditures by fund and source or program, type of
expenditure, and breakdown by object and function. These data are used for financial
tracking and reporting, including comparisons with budget amounts and preparation of
year-end statements and balance sheets. The status of a given project or program at any
time during the fiscal year can be determined through reports or queries of COFRS data.
Budget data for the current fiscal year are contained in CDOT’s Promise database,
discussed in Section 2.5.

Changes in program projects, when needed, can be accomplished through STIP

amendments. Two types of amendments are recognized by CDOT: administrative
amendments and policy amendments.

Administrative amendments are more common and deal with minor funding or scheduling
changes that do not result in major revisions or impacts to other projects. Examples of
administrative amendments include the following:

• Movements of projects or funds among the first three years of the STIP;

• Adjustments in project cost due to bids lower or higher than the engineer’s estimate;

• An increase in project cost of more than 15 percent if it does not affect negatively the

financial feasibility of another project;

• Addition or deletion of projects less than $500,000;

• Changes in the Surface Treatment Program;

• Changes in responsible agency or funding source affecting a project; and

• Amendments initiated by an MPO to its program.

Administrative amendments are processed monthly and can be approved by the Director of
OFMB.

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Policy amendments deal with more substantial changes and are much less common.
Examples include changes in the priority or scope of a project, increases or decreases in the
cost of a project that exceed five percent of the total funds available in that program, and
any other amendment that does not qualify as an administrative amendment. Policy
amendments must go through a formal public review and comment process and are
processed biennially.

CDOT’s STIP amendment mechanisms are limited to policy and administrative

amendments, and do not include additional gradations of change. As a counter-example,
systems used by other DOTs might allow for four or five degrees of revision in cost,
schedule, and scope during design or construction. Responsibility for review and approval
of increasing levels of change (expressed, for example, as a percentage of project baseline
values of duration or cost) in these other cases would lie with DOT managerial, executive,
Transportation Commission, or legislative committees, respectively.

On a related point, CDOT does not appear to use formal scope definitions that define
explicitly the anticipated work, cost, and schedule of a project as part of initial STIP
development. Such scoping documents could serve as a baseline for subsequent tracking of
project delivery and documentation of revisions. CDOT’s planning and STIP databases
have been designed to associate a single project number with a given project throughout its
life cycle, providing continuity from long-range planning through STIP development to
project implementation and completion. It does not appear, however, that this characteristic
has been employed to develop planned-versus-actual statistics on overall program delivery.

2.5 Management Systems and Information

Several management systems and databases used by CDOT are important to asset
management. Broadened application of these systems, additional improvements in systems
features and capabilities, and integration of systems logic or data could further advance
CDOT’s asset management practice. The following sections summarize the major systems
capabilities and their status regarding asset management.

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Data Warehouse. CDOT has been developing a comprehensive departmental data

warehouse for more than 10 years. The design of this data warehouse calls for information
on virtually all of the Department’s internal and external business processes:

• Colorado general information – e.g., county information, historical information

• CDOT organizational information – organization chart, position requirements,

departmental policies

• Human resources – departmental staffing levels, employee classification, employee

listing, individual employee records and histories (compensation, leave, performance,

training, medical, etc.), workman’s compensation information

• Financial – financial accounting (revenues, expenditures, fund transfers, grants, damage

claims), budget, payroll, procurement, indirect cost allocation, materials and supplies
inventories/stores, fixed assets (non-highway buildings, furniture and equipment)

• Projects – construction project pipeline; project data, design data; right-of-way

inventory; project agreements; project contract data; project histories, engineer’s

estimates and bid tabulations; project materials test data

• Equipment – departmental vehicle inventory, usage, maintenance, fuel

• Transportation infrastructure:

− Highway inventory – HPMS data (100 percent sample), segment definition and
location, segment classification, structural and operational characteristics, traffic
volumes (AADT), locational information, railroad crossings

− Safety – location, number, type/severity, time of crashes; crash circumstances and

factors

− Transportation infrastructure management – pavements, bridges and other

structures (including border structure information), signs, access control points,
intersections, inspection histories

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− Highway maintenance – roadway surfaces and shoulders, roadsides, drainage,

structures, traffic features, tunnels, rest areas, maintenance yards and equipment;
maintenance labor, equipment, and materials costs

− Environmental impacts – sites of potential impacts regarding hazardous materials,

ecological impacts, cultural impacts, noise pollution; project review information

− Customer event tracking – complaints and resolutions

Several of these modules have been completed or are now under development. One major
area that is not now addressed in the data warehouse, however, concerns the infrastructure
management component. The analytic and informational capabilities associated with this
component have been assumed to date by stand-alone information and decision support
tools, such as CDOT’s pavement management system (PMS), its Pontis® bridge
management system (BMS), and its maintenance management system (MMS). These
infrastructure management systems are stand-alone applications, each with its own
development history, database, analytic engine, and reports. Data used by each system are
updated by periodic surveys or inspections of asset condition. Following are descriptions of
the relevant features of each of these systems.

Infrastructure Management Systems – Bridge Management – Pontis® Capabilities.

The Pontis® Bridge Management System (BMS) is designed to assist an agency with
recommendations for bridge maintenance and capital improvement projects. Pontis® is now
licensed through the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials
through its AASHTOW are program to over 40 state DOTs and other agencies, including
CDOT.

Pontis® supports the entire bridge management cycle, allowing user input at each stage of
the process. The system organizes an agency’s bridge inventory and records biennial and
special inspection data. Once inspection data have been entered, Pontis® can be used to
formulate systemwide preservation and improvement policies that evaluate bridge needs
according to economic and technical criteria. Pontis® analyses can be applied to
recommend projects for inclusion in an agency’s capital plan for deriving the maximum

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benefit from limited funds. They can also be used for maintenance tracking and federal
reporting. Pontis® analyses can integrate the objectives of public safety and risk reduction,
user benefit, and preservation of investment to recommend budgetary, maintenance, and
program strategies. It thus can provide a systematic procedure for the allocation of
resources to the preservation and improvement of the bridges in a network.

Figure 9 shows the framework Pontis® uses in recommending projects for an agency’s
capital or maintenance programs. In making project recommendations, Pontis®
distinguishes between preservation and improvement projects. Preservation projects consist
of bridge maintenance, repair, and rehabilitation (MR&R) actions performed on individual
bridge elements. Pontis® models how MR&R actions improve element condition, as well as
how bridge elements deteriorate over time in the absence of MR&R actions. The overall
objective of preservation projects is to maintain bridges at minimum long-term cost,
without altering the bridges’ functional aspects. Example preservation projects include
replacing a bridge deck or repainting a bridge’s painted steel elements.

Improvement projects alter functional aspects of a bridge. These projects are intended to
address functional shortcomings. To develop improvement projects, Pontis® identifies
instances where adequate standards are not met, develops strategies to meet them, and
prioritizes the candidate improvements. Example improvement projects include widening a
deck, or raising a bridge to gain added vertical clearance, or strengthening a bridge to carry
heavier loads.

Pontis® uses a comprehensive set of preservation models to determine the optimal MR&R
policy for each bridge element. The deterioration and cost models are initially based upon
expert judgments. As an inspection history is developed and maintenance actions are
recorded in the database, Pontis® can update the deterioration and cost models based on the
historical data. Pontis® uses the deterioration and cost models to perform the preservation
optimization using a Markov decision model. The result is a recommended MR&R policy
for minimizing long-term preservation costs for each bridge element.

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The results of the preservation optimization, along with additional data on the agency’s
budget and the agency’s policies and standards, are used as inputs to the program
simulation. In the program simulation Pontis® develops a list of recommended projects
which can include both preservation and improvement actions, or can address preservation
actions separately from improvement actions. The agency then uses the Pontis®
recommendations to develop the actual plan. As preservation and improvement projects are
performed, data on project scope and costs are entered into Pontis® for use in
recommending future plans.

Besides the agency’s budget, a number of additional simulation constraints may be

specified to help generate projects that reflect the real-world conditions under which
agencies operate. These include:

Inspection Data Cost Data

Deterioration Model Cost Model

Preservation
Optimization

Policies and
Budgets
Standards

Program
Simulation

Recommended
Project Plan

Perform
Projects

Figure 9. Pontis® Modeling Framework

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• Minimum project cost – Work is deferred until future years if the sum of the costs of

recommended actions on a structure is less than this value;

• Minimum action cost – Individual preservation actions are deferred if their cost is less

than this value;

• Deferment years – After a project has been performed on a structure, work may be

deferred for a specified number of years; and

• Replacement threshold – If the cost of preservation actions for a structure exceeds a

specified percentage of the replacement costs, a replacement alternative is triggered.

However, this alternative is suppressed if the candidate replacement project fails to meet
certain other criteria.

The simulation generates project recommendations for each structure in a network for each
program year simulated. Pontis® aggregates the project-level results to derive network-level
results of needs, recommended work, and projected benefits of doing the recommended
work. Pontis® also stores the project-level results for use in project planning.

CDOT Application of Pontis. CDOT now uses Pontis® as a database repository for
inventory and condition information on state-owned (“on-system”) and local (“off-system”)
bridges. Part of this information is shared with maintenance management for performance-
based budgeting, as described below. CDOT to date has not made significant use of Pontis’
analytic capabilities, however, for scenario testing in relation to program development.

Pavement Management. CDOT’s Pavement Management System (PMS) assists the

agency in tracking current pavement condition and estimating future needs to maintain the
pavement network according to specified performance goals. Current pavement condition
is established through annual inspections of 0.1-mile sample sections in designated lanes of
each state highway. Several aspects of surface condition are monitored, including
roughness, rutting, faulting of rigid pavements, degrees of cracking and patching, and other
surface and materials defects.

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These condition data are stored and can be incorporated within various statistical
calculations along a route or within a region: e.g., maximum and minimum values, and
averages and variances. One or more individual condition values are also combined and
normalized within performance indexes, each defined on a scale of zero (poor condition) to
100 (excellent condition). These indexes help relate current pavement condition to
threshold values that imply the need for remedial work and that, when reached, signal the
need for site investigations to determine the best remedy. For example, indexes defined for
flexible pavements include a Rideability Index (based on roughness), a Rut Index (based on
rutting), and a Crack Index (based on various categories of cracking). A corresponding set
of indexes is defined for rigid pavements. The time at which each index is forecast to reach
its respective threshold value determines the remaining service life (RSL) for that measure.
The minimum RSL among all indexes for a pavement determines the remaining service life
of the pavement overall.

Measures such as RSL and Rideability provide an overall assessment of pavement

condition from a customer perspective, and are used to report and forecast pavement
network performance with respect to goals established by the Transportation Commission.
An optimization process is run within the PMS to estimate the distribution of future
pavement surface condition in terms of percent Good, Fair, and Poor pavements as a
function of different budget levels. These estimates can be translated into dollar needs and
resulting pavement condition by CDOT region. Additional breakdowns of these results are
available by functional class of highway. In addition to these network-level results, the
recently implemented version of CDOT’s PMS considers individual pavement projects and
maintenance activities.

Maintenance Management. CDOT’s Maintenance Management System (MMS) tracks

expenditures and accomplishments by activity as organized in nine maintenance program
areas:

• Planning and Scheduling (including related meetings, inspections, and leave reporting);

• Roadway Surface (pavements and shoulders);

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• Roadside Facilities (e.g., drainage structures, fences, slopes, litter pickup);

• Roadside Appearance (primarily vegetation control and landscaping);

• Traffic Services (signs, signals, lighting, guardrail, pavement markings);

• Structure Maintenance (bridges, major culverts, approaches);

• Snow and Ice Control (plowing, deicing and anti-icing, snow fences, avalanche control,

post-storm cleanup);

• Materials, Equipment, and Buildings (rest areas, maintenance yards, handling of

materials stockpiles); and

• Tunnel Maintenance (structural and systems maintenance, operations monitoring).

Data on maintenance performance and costs are tabulated within the MMS based upon field
reports (“green cards”) filed by maintenance crews. The green cards identify maintenance
activity and location, and the labor, equipment, and materials resources used. These data
are processed by the MMS and summarized by program area, activity, and maintenance
section monthly and annually. Within the past two years the MMS has been upgraded to a
Windows™, Y2K-compliant platform.

CDOT has supplemented the MMS with a performance-based budgeting tool that
incorporates explicit levels of service related to the condition of highway maintainable
items and to levels of activity performance or responsiveness. To support this approach,
annual surveys of highway maintenance condition are conducted on a randomly selected
sample of highway segments or features. These data establish a baseline of current
highway condition, which can be converted to a current maintenance level of service.
Future target levels of service can then be investigated in terms of projected maintenance
budget and improvement in highway condition. Ultimately, maintenance levels of service
will be related to performance measures developed in CDOT’s Investment Category
structure described earlier.

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The maintenance level-of-service approach has prompted efforts to make use of data from
other CDOT infrastructure management systems. To date advances have occurred with the
Pontis® BMS, by which data on bridge condition (for those elements in a condition state
that makes them candidates for maintenance) are applied directly to determine current level
of service. Similar integration with PMS data remains an objective for the future.

Geographic Information System (GIS). A geographic information system (GIS) can

serve as a platform to integrate information from asset management systems and other
sources of relevant information. CDOT has had a GIS operating within DTD for several
years, and the system is widely accessible by CDOT staff. The GIS displays information
on highway and aviation transportation assets, and is updated though links to the data
warehouse and databases associated with individual management systems. GIS is now
applied to a number of objectives, including analyses of environmental impacts, project
scope studies, identification of maintenance and bridge needs, and planning studies.

CDOT is now engaged in a pilot study in Region 2 to assess the usefulness of the GIS at a
level of engineering precision in the context of corridor studies. To date, this effort has
been successful. The next step will be to investigate GIS support for engineering at a
project level.

Efforts are also underway to broaden the usefulness of GIS to a wider audience within
CDOT. This effort entails promoting GIS information as an asset, strengthening its analytic
capabilities to be of use to a number of groups, and to provide information in a way that
assists high-level decisions. Greater use of GIS on the Internet and continued development
of web-based tools, user ability to obtain customized maps and ad hoc reports, data mining
capabilities, and the combination of GIS tools with complementary analytical capabilities of
specialized management systems also point to growing uses of GIS at CDOT in the future.

Budget and Financial Management. CDOT’s financial management systems provide

information on the funding and expenditure dimensions of asset management:

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• The COFRS system stores and processes expenditure data for the entire Department by

fiscal year. COFRS data can be used to infer “true” costs of asset management activities
that include indirect cost components or other adjustments that are not accounted for in
infrastructure management systems. Such an adjustment is now performed in
Maintenance program performance budgeting. The COFRS totals for CDOT highway
capital and maintenance programs can also serve as the basis for current expenditures
needed in financial reports (refer to Section 2.6).

• The ProMIS database, which is part of CDOT’s data warehouse, enables automation of

STIP program building, processing of budget and obligation transactions, comparisons

of budget requests with corresponding estimates, tracking of expenditures, and
automated reporting between CDOT and the FHWA.

Customer Surveys. In addition to data collection efforts conducted in association with

each of the infrastructure management systems described above, CDOT also conducts
periodic surveys of highway users – its customers. Questions are posed to different user
groups (e.g., metro and non-metro residents) regarding the condition of various highway
features and quality of services. These data are tabulated and summarized, and can be
compared both cross-sectionally across different groups of respondents and in time-series
against previous survey results, to assess degree of improvement and relative priority of
needs as perceived by the public.

2.6 GASB Standards

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) has recently issued Statement 34,
updating the standards applicable to financial reporting by state and local governments.
Among its many provisions is a change requiring inclusion of transportation infrastructure
assets – e.g., roadways and bridges – in an agency’s financial reports. GASB allows two
methods by which data applicable to transportation systems may be reported: a
depreciation approach, and a modified approach that takes full advantage of an agency’s
management systems to provide key data.

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CDOT has elected to use the modified approach for its pavements and bridges, and is now
working to develop the needed information in the following areas:

• A valuation of current transportation assets;

• Identification of current asset condition and applicable expenditures; and

• Statements of goals or targets governing future infrastructure condition, and estimates of

the expenditures that will be needed to meet these goals.

CDOT will use its records of infrastructure construction, historical cost trends, expenditure
data on its capital and maintenance programs, and predictions by its infrastructure
management systems, to develop the information needed in these reports.

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3.0 Other States’ Experience

3.1 Nature of Review

Several state DOTs were visited to obtain comparative information on how these agencies
are dealing with asset management. While transportation asset management is still a
nascent discipline, these agencies may be regarded as “leaders” in that they have taken
proactive initiatives in asset management as an overall departmental initiative, or they have
at a minimum made significant advances in infrastructure management that strongly
reinforce the objectives of good asset management practice. The states visited are Arizona,
California, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington State.

• New York State DOT has had an active asset management program in place for several

years. Michigan DOT has been pursuing several business process and information
technology advances since the mid-1990s, which have now been folded into a
departmental asset management initiative.

• Arizona DOT and PennDOT are just beginning their development of an asset

management plan and strategy, and therefore are in a position comparable to that of
CDOT.

• Washington State DOT (WSDOT) and California DOT (Caltrans) manage highway

systems with significant structures, traversing a wide range of climate and terrain.
WSDOT over the past decade has implemented both a renewed programming process
for its highway capital programs and a level-of-service-based performance budgeting
process for its maintenance program. Caltrans is now implementing a comprehensive
level-of-service approach to its maintenance program.

In addition, the consulting team has supplemented these findings with background
information from the national asset management study (NCHRP Project 20-24(11)), from
previous engagements with transportation agencies (e.g., in studies of capital programming,
maintenance management, performance-based planning, and other topics relevant to asset
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management), and material from other sources such as asset management workshops,
conferences, and surveys.

As a general comment, it is clear from the interviews that there is no one, single, “correct”
approach to asset management. Rather, the practice must be evaluated in the context of
several factors affecting the agency’s infrastructure and its management principles and
culture, including:

• Maturity of the transportation system and factors affecting system demand;

• State and departmental policy goals, objectives, and issues;

• Funding levels and mechanisms, including legislatively mandated projects and resource

caps;

• Degree of agency centralization, and evolution of organizational roles and

responsibilities; and

• Institutional and interjurisdictional relationships.

These factors influence both the condition and performance of an agency’s infrastructure,
and how the agency approaches managing, investing in, and operating that infrastructure.
For example, institutional and funding considerations delimit the agency’s latitude in
defining alternatives and making decisions. Policy goals and objectives influence the
priorities of actions and choices. An agency facing significant population and economic
growth pressures, such as Arizona DOT, defines and approaches asset management
differently (e.g., with respect to system expansion and improvement) from an agency where
deteriorating infrastructure and constraints on additional system expansion tend to focus
choices on preservation (a situation faced by New York State DOT, for example).

Nonetheless, there are several useful examples of practices among the states interviewed
that can contribute to improved asset management. These are presented in the following
section. In this section we also cite comparisons where appropriate between practices in
other states and those in CDOT, including instances in which particular subjects of interest

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to CDOT in this study may not have been observed in the state DOTs interviewed. In a
later discussion we will identify potential challenges to asset management implementation
that likewise have been observed during work on this task.

3.2 Practices Applicable to Asset Management

Improved Planning, Programming, and Monitoring. Performance-Based

Planning and Programming. While many state DOTs are implementing performance
measures within planning and programming, Washington State has recently done so within
the context of a completely renewed and integrated long-range planning and capital
programming process. Key elements of this process include the following:

• Vertical integration and consistency throughout the process, from policy guidance

through definition of planning service objectives, formulation of prioritization formulas,

and definition of system performance measures.

• Prioritization formulas and project selection criteria for all programs based upon a

benefit-cost criterion where possible, supplemented by additional considerations as

appropriate (e.g., environmental impacts, intermodal connections, network connectivity,
contribution to economic opportunity). These formulas and criteria help to rationalize
the allocation of funds for statewide projects. However, the implications of these
allocations are modified by “hold harmless” or other guaranteed distributions of a
portion of program funds to DOT regions, apart from the statewide competition.

• Performance-based planning employing specific service objectives in each program area.

While its long-range plan might now be considered a policy plan, WSDOT is
considering moving toward a project-oriented plan. WSDOT is now working with the
University of Washington to investigate methods for multimodal tradeoffs in its planning
process.

Strategic View of Transportation System. We did not identify in the DOTs interviewed a
formal tiering process for the transportation system analogous to that proposed by CDOT in

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this project. Caltrans employs several individual classification schemes for particular
programs. Its highway maintenance classification, comprising three classes of roads
denoting relative priority, is based upon highway functional classification and is a simple
example of tiering. Other examples in Caltrans, such as its High Emphasis Interregional
Routes and a subset, High Emphasis Focus Routes, denote relative priority for investment
in future statewide programs to bring these routes to a uniform defined standard. These
classifications are based, however, more on programmatic designations rather than upon
specific, objective highway characteristics and usage, as anticipated in CDOT’s tiering
process. These Caltrans route designations also correlate in some degree with designations
based upon statewide policy goals: e.g., Intermodal Corridors of Economic Significance,
and Transportation Gateways of Statewide Significance.

Several states are moving from a view of projects as individual elements of a program to a
more strategic approach that groups projects for consideration by corridor or another logical
set: e.g., joined sections of two or more routes or corridors. This approach helps maintain
network connectivity and consistency of route characteristics, and may reduce the number
of road occupancy periods for construction.

Executive-Level Program Review. New York State DOT has instituted an executive-level
body to review its transportation program submittals just prior to final recommendation.
The Capital Program Management Team comprises the First Deputy Commissioner, the
chief of staff, chief engineer, and managers from planning, communications, budget and
finance, and the chief counsel (for contracting and procurement). The purpose of its review
is a high-level, performance-based, non-technical assessment of forecast program
accomplishment and comparison with past trends, to judge whether established program
targets are or are not being met statewide, and to determine the causes of identified
problems. The review integrates pavement and bridge program recommendations, and is
accomplished in conjunction with executive-level performance standards and integrated
management system support, as discussed separately in sections below.

Performance Measures. State DOTs generally are focused on developing performance

standards to assist long-range planning and program development. While the technical

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definitions of these measures differ among states to reflect particular standards, measures of
deterioration, management philosophies, customer perceptions, or data collection methods,
overall they are similar in nature to one another. Where state practices diverge more
fundamentally, however, is in the ability to relate performance measures to broader policy
goals and objectives that govern respective programs. WSDOT’s experience, for example,
indicates that consistency between overall policy and more detailed program elements
(planning service objectives and prioritization formulas as well as performance measures)
must be a conscious objective in the structuring of program categories and procedures. No
DOT that was interviewed has a program structure analogous to CDOT’s Investment
Categories, a device that helps ensure this consistency.

New York State DOT has, in its asset management approach, supplemented technical
performance measures with executive-level measures that identify quickly the status of
current and forecast program accomplishment by program and geographic region (e.g.,
counties). For example, the following measures can be easily color-coded and displayed on
a map for NYSDOT’s pavement and bridge programs:

• Last program OK, this program OK;

• Last program not OK, this program OK;

• Last program not OK, this program improving;

• Last program not OK, this program worse; and

• Last program OK, this program not OK.

Note that these measures capture simultaneously the satisfaction of a target and the
direction of a trend. Targets are established by NYSDOT for pavements and for bridges
based upon defined condition standards, analogous to those used by CDOT in its pavement
and bridge programs. Decisions on which pavements and bridge projects should be
recommended in a given program, and coordination among these projects where
appropriate, are resolved by technical managers prior to submitting the program to the
Capital Program Management Team for review (refer to prior section). The Team
considers the recommended program accomplishments overall in light of the five measures
above, displayed on a statewide map by county or other geographic division. Where the

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result is deemed unacceptable or questionable, the program is returned to technical and

regional managers for review and modification as needed.

Proactive Risk Reduction. A theme emerging from practices of the states interviewed
concerns an effort to move their program philosophies from a reactive or “worst first”
approach to a more proactive, “optimizing” approach. This shift in philosophy takes the
following forms:

• Greater emphasis on preventive preservation and lowest long-term cost. This

approach results directly from the “least life-cycle cost” concept that is the basis of
technical and economic analyses of performance, particularly as applied to pavements
and bridges, but also with growing applications to other highway features such as
pavement markings. While pavement and bridge management systems have long been
based on assumptions of least life-cycle cost or long-term cost-effectiveness, DOTs may
have had to incur backlogs in needed work because of resource constraints or other
limits on optimal preservation strategies. Moving to a preventive approach is justified
economically and technically. However, it is a politically difficult decision because it
entails a short-term increase in cost to reduce the backlog to manageable proportions,
and it implies preventive work on road features that are still in good condition while
damaged features (former candidates for “worst first” funding) may receive reduced or
no investment short-term. WSDOT and Michigan DOT have addressed this issue
through analytic studies communicated to their governing bodies in support of the
change in philosophy to the least life-cycle-cost approach.

• More effective accident risk reduction. Safety projects have traditionally been based

upon projected accident reduction in demonstrably hazardous locations or corridors, and

in blanket risk reduction efforts – the latter prompted, for example, by federally
mandated safety improvements associated with highway rehabilitation projects (e.g.,
need for clear zones adjacent to shoulders). WSDOT has worked with its FHWA
division office to promote a more focused approach to accident risk reduction, based on
analyses of the likelihood of future accidents at particular locations or under particular
conditions. WSDOT and the FHWA have negotiated, as part of their stewardship

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agreement, provisions to fund pre-emptive safety projects at these locations where their
impact holds greatest likelihood of preventing future accidents. This is in contrast to a
broader application of safety funds along an entire route length, where impact on
ultimate performance may vary.

• Earlier environmental reviews. In areas of environmental sensitivity, reviews of

projects and challenges to their environmental acceptability can consume significant
time and delay a project schedule by months or years. A unique construction project
undertaken by WSDOT entailing a public-private partnership experimented with, among
other facets of project delivery, an earlier environmental review. The start of this review
coincided with initiation of preliminary project design, rather than waiting for
completion of some percentage of design as might occur in conventional projects. The
case study indicated that potential issues were identified earlier, and that project design
could accommodate environmental mitigation more economically and effectively.

Better Information and Analytic Capabilities. Next-Generation Management and

Data Systems. DOTs are dealing with how to update legacy systems that would play a
strong role in asset management. The strategies available to accomplish this differ widely.
At one end of the spectrum is a complete rewrite of asset management systems or databases
as has been undertaken by Michigan DOT. At the other end are more selective and limited
actions such as system updates, system and database integration, and new development of
specialized tools and procedures, as have been pursued by Caltrans, WSDOT, Arizona
DOT, and NYSDOT. Apart from this difference in approach as to how to obtain the
systems and data capabilities needed for more effective management, the following themes
emerge:

• GIS platform for integration. New York State DOT now integrates its pavement
management and bridge management information on a GIS platform as part of its asset
management development. A typical display shows a map with the highway system, on
which are superimposed color-coded symbols indicating pavement or bridge projects,
respectively. Double-clicking on a project symbol opens a window displaying detailed
information on the project. An analogous approach is now under development in

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Michigan DOT and Arizona DOT. MDOT has compiled a unified data repository, and
ADOT is designing and developing a data warehouse, both of which will consolidate
asset inventory information and potential project information from asset management
systems. These centralized data collections will communicate with a GIS to display
asset information spatially.

• Executive-level information. Most states employ asset management systems:

particularly for pavements and bridges, but also for safety, public transit, intermodal
facilities, other system features and appurtenances, construction projects, maintenance,
and traffic operations. Surveys conducted by the National Cooperative Highway
Research Program (NCHRP) and by the FHWA indicate that these systems are widely
used for technical and research purposes, including detailed program development.
However, their use by higher-level or executive management for decisions such as
resource allocation and program tradeoffs is much less frequent. Initiatives in asset
management and compliance with GASB Statement 34 (see below) will likely change
this outlook. WSDOT has for several years successfully employed an executive
information system that provides high-level programmatic and financial information to
WSDOT managers and legislative and commission members and staff. WSDOT’s
maintenance levels of service are likewise implemented in this executive-level system,
complete with color photographs illustrating each level of service within a maintenance
program area. Users can apply the system to explore budget implications of changes in
level of service within each program area. Michigan DOT has been contemplating such
a system to build upon its existing asset management applications. NYSDOT’s maps of
its high-level program performance measures (discussed above) are also an effective
illustration of information tailored to executives.

New System Developments. In addition to information and management system

developments by state DOTs, the FHWA’s Office of Asset Management is also undertaking
two major system initiatives that will contribute to asset management.

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• HERS/ST. FHWA’s Highway Economic Requirements System (HERS) is being

promoted for state DOT use, a program referred to as HERS/ST. The HERS application
is based on the Highway Performance Monitoring System (HPMS) database, and is
intended to replace HPMS as the source of biennial federal needs studies submitted to
Congress. The HERS algorithms address both highway capacity and pavement
preservation needs. Thus, HERS/ST is uniquely suited to asset management studies that
are more comprehensive than those addressed by individual management systems (e.g.,
pavement management and congestion management). For example, HERS/ST could be
applied to explore tradeoffs between system preservation and improvement/expansion.

• Tunnel Management. The FHWA, in cooperation with the Federal Transit

Administration (FTA), is scheduled to award in the near future a project to design a
Tunnel Management system. The project entails a number of components:

− A compilation of data on U.S. highway and transit tunnels, and recommendation of a

tunnel database structure;

− Manuals presenting guidelines for tunnel management; and

− Preliminary design of a Tunnel Management system, building on the database above,

and describing key system components and reports.

Transportation Operations Strategies. Transportation system operations are a

component of asset management that is likely to receive increased attention in congested
areas and in growth areas. Operations centers have been established in metropolitan areas
in several states to provide real-time monitoring of system performance. With the
implementation of intelligent transportation systems (ITS), operations managers can issue
and coordinate traffic advisories, variable message signs, ramp metering, and other
measures of traffic control and guidance. Caltrans has developed formal, comprehensive
Traffic Operations Strategies (TOPS) that seek to reduce congestion through improved
system management. Elements of TOPS include the following:

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1. Completing the “intelligence” component of existing infrastructure;

2. Correcting infrastructure “bottlenecks” at the corridor and system levels through

physical improvements;

3. Filling gaps in the high-occupancy-vehicle (HOV) network to eliminate traffic

disruptions at merge points with general purpose lanes; and

4. Modifying selected freeway-to-freeway interchanges to minimize traffic disruptions.

These objectives are organized within three investment levels, with initial funding focused
on the first level:

• Level 1 focuses on choke points that can be corrected through minor operational

improvements: e.g., auxiliary lanes, intersection modifications, and the addition and
coordination of intelligent system devices. Level 1 encompasses the first two
components listed above.

• Level 2 adds HOV capacity and operational improvements, addressing the third

component above.

• Level 3 includes major operational improvements, addressing component number 4

above.

Organizational Practices. Asset management has potentially significant implications

for organizational roles and responsibilities and both internal and external communications
by an agency. The institution of new business processes, such as the Capital Program
Management Team by NYSDOT described earlier, is one example of business process
change as a direct result of asset management implementation. More generally, improved
asset management techniques have evolved from new business models adopted by agencies
that are customer-oriented and performance-based: e.g., the use of input from customer
surveys for program and performance evaluation, definition of customer-oriented
performance measures for transportation programs, and application of performance
budgeting and level-of-service concepts to highway maintenance. Many of these are

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already familiar to CDOT, and match developments in states visited. Some additional ideas
gained from the state visits include the following:

• Internal vision workshops. As part of its development of an asset management

strategic plan, PennDOT has held a departmental vision workshop to review the
proposed framework, tasks, and intended benefits associated with specific asset
management steps. This workshop provided the benefit of both knowledge-building as
well as team-building. While it succeeded in communicating what is asset management
and its importance to the department, it also fostered the improved communication
across departmental units that is needed for successful asset management
implementation.

• Asset management communication package. Michigan DOT has developed a

“marketing” package advertising its activities and objectives in asset management. This
color presentation comprises a number of “fact sheets” summarizing key topics and
activities. Individual sheets present a primer on asset management, descriptions of key
management systems, an overview of the process, introduction to asset management as a
way of doing business, historical perspective, and descriptions of specific activities.

• Report cards. The PennDOT Secretary of Transportation issues a monthly report card

to its customers on measures of agency programs and performance. These cover a

variety of topics, including roadway smoothness, pothole maintenance, safety of rail
crossings, winter services, safe driving statistics, and customer services, among others.

• Interjurisdictional cooperation. PennDOT engages in the Agility Program, which

establishes cooperative relationships with other jurisdictions to offer seamless
transportation services. For example, PennDOT may paint markings on a township’s
roads while the township mows grass on a state highway within its jurisdiction.

GASB 34 Reporting Compliance. As of the dates of the respective interviews, most of

the states visited had decided to conform to GASB 34 standards using the modified method.
Several (e.g., Caltrans, ADOT, MDOT) are now working through the details of identifying

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the sources of the specific information and the nature of the calculations and adjustments
needed to produce the requisite reports and supplementary information.

3.3 Challenges to Asset Management Implementation

One of the findings in the national (NCHRP) asset management study is that private sector
firms that practice asset management exhibit a high degree of alignment in their policies
and practices: i.e., the importance of asset management to a company’s operations and
profitability is clear throughout the organization, and both corporate and individual
incentives are aligned to promote highly effective management practices. Part of the
challenge of implementing asset management principles in the public sector is the nature of
a transportation agency’s organizational, institutional and financial environment, coupled
with constraints imposed by other bodies. Characteristics of this environment that can
impede asset management include the following:

• Responsibility for different modes or for different segments of the transportation system

is fragmented across several agencies.

• Funding is often constrained by mode and function, limiting the latitude by which a

DOT could otherwise assign funds to where they are most needed.

• Within a highway transportation organization, the pavement, bridge, maintenance, and

other organizational units involved in asset management are not integrated. While
channels of vertical communication may be adequate within these areas of core
expertise, horizontal communication may be not be sufficient for good asset
management, or may not occur at the appropriate management levels.

• Management systems and databases are often stand-alone and of different vintages,

complicating issues of system integration and data integrity, accuracy, completeness, and
currency.

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• Senior management does not have access to sufficient quality information to analyze

tradeoffs and make resource allocation decisions effectively, as noted earlier. There are
likely a number of historical reasons for this.

• The increased scope and complexity of departmental responsibilities must be balanced

against resource limits and imposed constraints. Change management is therefore very
much an issue faced by DOTs, but agencies across the Nation have dealt with the
problem differently.

As a result of these characteristics, asset management implementation within a DOT will

face a number of challenges. For convenience we have organized these below into two
groups: institutional, and technical. It is our considered opinion, as well as that of several
managers we interviewed, that the institutional challenges are more significant and
potentially difficult to deal with.

Institutional Challenges

• To integrate decision-making and allocation of resources across asset classes;

• To combine the financial, management, engineering, and operational perspectives of a

department within this decision process;

• To define system performance measures that reflect customer perspective and user costs

effectively;

• To secure senior management support and leadership throughout the period of asset

management implementation, which may extend over several years; and

• To develop new public and private sector roles that enable an agency to fulfill its

mission in the face of change, and to implement these roles effectively.

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Technical Challenges

• To integrate “stovepipe” or “silo-based” legacy systems and stand-alone databases

established for different asset classes or functions;

• To develop comprehensive, GIS-compatible, enterprise-wide databases that better serve

asset management;

• To create next generation management systems or specialized analytic tools that support

a wide range of “what-if” analyses reflecting different budget and performance

assumptions (e.g., for tradeoff analyses);

• To improve life-cycle analysis methods and incorporate them fully within planning and

program development; and

• To strengthen transportation system monitoring capabilities and use of this information

for program evaluation and policy formulation.

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4.0 Asset Management Plan

4.1 Vision

Foundations. This vision of transportation asset management builds upon CDOT’s

development of several relevant concepts and methods that have been described in
Section 2.0 and are summarized as follows:

• Goals and objectives of asset management are articulated in policies and guidance issued

by the Transportation Commission.

• CDOT’s Transportation Investment Strategy uniquely organizes capital, maintenance,

and other programs within a comprehensive framework embodying goals, objective

evaluation criteria, outcome-based performance measures, and customer perceptions.

• CDOT follows a long-range planning process and the 4P program development process

within the context of the Investment Category framework. These processes are project-
specific, respond to policies and guidance established by the Transportation
Commission, and incorporate comments received during statewide public outreach.

• CDOT and the Transportation Commission have adopted a more holistic view of

projects through the Strategic Projects program.

• CDOT is moving toward integration of pavement management, bridge management, and

maintenance management results through the Investment Strategy and the Maintenance
Level of Service efforts to inform planning and program development.

• CDOT’s Maintenance Level of Service Program has been integrated with a

performance-based budgeting tool that has been successfully applied to Maintenance

Program budget recommendations beginning in FY 2001.

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• CDOT conducts periodic inspections of its highway pavement, bridge, and maintenance

features, as well as customer surveys regarding perceptions of current levels of

transportation service.

• CDOT’s current updates of its management and information systems will benefit its

asset management program. These updates include migration of the maintenance

management system (MMS) to a Y2K-compatible Windows™ platform, functional
upgrade of the pavement management system (PMS), and pilot use of the geographic
information system (GIS) for engineering-oriented applications.

• CDOT has pursued innovative project delivery and financing mechanisms in the form of

design-build contracts with both FHWA and FTA funding participation on the Southeast
Corridor project.

With this breadth of accomplishment and CDOT’s initiative in developing this asset
management plan, it can fairly be said that CDOT is in the leadership ranks among
transportation agencies nationwide in pursuing asset management. While several of the
developments listed above are similar to initiatives pursued by other states, CDOT’s
Investment Category structure is unique:

• The Investment Category structure integrates several elements critical to asset

management within a coherent, overarching framework;

• It structures investments based upon policy objective and impact on performance rather

than funding source; and

• It facilitates the analysis of tradeoffs among capital, maintenance, and operations

program categories.

The Investment Category structure provides the unifying framework for communicating a
vision of asset management at CDOT.

Vision Statement. The vision guiding CDOT’s implementation of asset management is

proposed as follows:

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Transportation asset management represents a strategic approach to managing

transportation infrastructure. It embodies a philosophy that is comprehensive, proactive,
and long-term with the following goals:

• To build, preserve, operate, and reinvest in facilities more cost-effectively with

improved performance;

• To deliver to an agency’s customers the best value for the dollar spent; and

• To enhance CDOT’s credibility and accountability in its stewardship of transportation

assets.

Asset management provides a set of principles that guide an agency in improving how it
conducts its business, how it reaches decisions, and how it processes, uses, and
communicates information related to the management of its infrastructure. At its core, asset
management focuses on an agency’s allocation of resources – funding, people and skills,
and information. It provides an integrated framework that establishes common approaches
across asset classes in planning, program development, and program delivery. It
encourages a number of best practices in these processes: e.g., consideration of the full
range of alternatives at each stage of decision, effective use of management and information
systems throughout, adoption of a long-term view in economic analysis of projects, and
evaluation of tradeoffs across programs. Asset management is results-oriented, driven by
policy goals and objectives with clear measures of system performance and accountability.

CDOT has already taken a number of steps toward improved asset management. A major
development has been the establishment of the Investment Category structure, which
organizes program investments within a policy-oriented framework identifying explicit
measures of performance. Other CDOT accomplishments complement the Investment
Category approach, including updates of the statewide planning process and the program
prioritization process, establishment of maintenance program levels of service, institution of
customer surveys, and updates of relevant information and database systems. This Asset
Management Plan builds upon these established concepts, methods, information, and tools

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to propose specific actions over the next five years to build upon and expand these
accomplishments. Hallmarks of this vision include the following:

• Completion of all elements of the Investment Category structure, and incorporation of all

infrastructure programs, including Strategic Projects, in the Investment Category

approach;

• Incorporation of asset management principles in CDOT’s planning and programming

processes, building on the tiered structuring of CDOT assets recommended in this study;

• Integration of asset management information on a GIS platform, and renewal of

Information Technology strategic planning to support asset management department-

wide; and

• Strengthening of program delivery mechanisms and measures.

Each of these areas entails multiple tasks that will need to be accomplished. Definition of
these tasks, assessment of priority, designation of organizational responsibility, and
estimation of the time and cost of accomplishment must take into account the specifics of
the current situation and the recommended business process in each of these areas. To
illustrate how this is done, the following sections provide examples, for specific program
decision processes, of how this asset management vision is translated into specific steps for
accomplishment.

4.2 Translating Vision Into Specific Recommendations

Example – Pavement Preservation. The example business process that will be used in
this section is program development for pavement preservation. Pavement preservation is a
component of the System Quality Investment Category, and encompasses both capital and
maintenance work. The pavement example is an important and a relevant one to asset
management improvement for the following reasons:

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• Pavement preservation is a significant component of CDOT’s annual capital and

maintenance program.

• Pavement condition strongly affects customer perception of highway condition and of

the quality of the job that CDOT is doing.

• The quality of service provided by Colorado’s pavements is a focus of attention of the

Transportation Commission, which has established explicit targets for statewide

pavement condition by highway functional class.

• CDOT has recently improved its analytic capabilities for identifying pavement needs:

− It has implemented a new pavement management system (PMS) to help identify

locations of deficient pavements and to apply the concept of Remaining Service Life
(RSL) to predict future needs; and

− It has also developed maintenance levels of service (LOS) as part of its maintenance
management system (MMS), to be able to express the current condition of pavements
and other maintainable features, and to relate target conditions to required
expenditures in a performance budgeting approach.

• Predictions of the PMS have been called into question at the Region level, based upon

comparisons with actual projects programmed. From an asset management perspective:

− This matter may indicate need for improvement in the analytic capabilities of the
PMS, or in the quality of the pavement condition data monitored in the field; and

− It may also indicate the need for improved business processes between CDOT Central
and Region offices, to ensure closer agreement on pavement project definition.

How these and other factors are accounted for in the asset management review is illustrated
by comparing the current pavement programming process with a “straw” proposal of how
pavement program development could be accomplished under an improved process
conforming more closely to asset management principles.

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Comparison – Current and Proposed Program Processes. Current Pavement

Program Process. The analytic basis of the current pavement programming process is
illustrated schematically in Figure 10. This figure is idealized and simplified for the
purpose of this example, but it illustrates the key points of interest. Two parallel tracks of
program development are shown: one for capital projects based upon application of the
PMS; the second, for maintenance work based upon application of the MMS. Within each
year, future program needs are projected in the PMS and the MMS tracks based upon the
following inputs:

Goals/Targets, Condition Data Survey Data, LOS Targets

PMS MMS

Pavement Project Rec. Pavement Maint. Rec.

Surface Treatment Portion of Surface Pavement

Capital Program Treatment Program Maintenance
Program
Performance Measures,
Compare with Targets Performance Measures,
Compare with LOS Targets

Figure 10. Current Approach to Pavement Program

Development and Implementation

• Current pavement condition as established through field surveys of a sample of the

network. Separate surveys are now conducted by the PMS and the MMS groups.

• Target level of service or condition, expressed as a policy input. For capital projects

managed with the PMS, this target responds to goals set by CDOT and the
Transportation Commission, and may be expressed, for example, by adjusting the
“trigger values” at which pavement remedial work will take place. For maintenance

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activities managed with the MMS, targets are set by specifying future LOS values for
each maintainable aspect of pavements.

These inputs are analyzed by the PMS and the MMS, respectively. The PMS employs
internal decision procedures to identify those pavement sections where RSL will exceed the
trigger value within the timeframe of the program under development. The LOS Budgeting
module of the MMS has internal models that relate projected maintenance expenditures for
the program under development to a comparison of target versus current LOS. In each
case, the systems produce candidate recommendations that can be reviewed by CDOT
managers in the Central and the Regional offices. The result of these reviews is a
recommended Surface Treatment Program for capital projects and a recommended
maintenance program for maintenance activities.

A portion of the Surface Treatment Program goes to fund pavement preventive maintenance
as part of the maintenance program, as shown in Figure 10. Notwithstanding this
interaction between the two programs, however, the two management tracks are conducted
largely independently, with separate surveys, separate inputs of levels of service, and
independent analytic techniques. Moreover, once the capital and maintenance work is
accomplished on the pavement network, comparisons of resulting system condition and
performance to intended targets are likewise accomplished independently by pavement
management and maintenance management units. The conclusion is that the program
development processes for pavement preservation are conducted in what is often described
as a “silo” or “stovepipe” process.

From an asset management perspective, silo or stovepipe processes typically do not yield
solutions as cost-effective as those produced by a more integrated approach. The reason is
that the mix of pavement maintenance and capital rehabilitation or reconstruction activities
have not been subjected to a life-cycle cost analysis. Such an analysis, investigating the
tradeoffs between capital and maintenance actions on pavements, could identify the optimal
point at which maintenance is no longer efficient, and capital repairs should be undertaken.
Moreover, by unifying the establishment and review of pavement performance measures
and pavement maintenance LOS, CDOT could ensure that both capital and maintenance

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resources are being applied in the best way to meet the Transportation Commission’s goals
for pavement condition.

Improved Pavement Program Process

An approach that conforms more closely to asset management principles is illustrated in

Figure 11. The process represents a unified series of decisions, rather than in separate
“silos.” While separate management systems may still be employed for pavement (capital)
and maintenance management, the inputs to these systems are developed in a coordinated
and systematic fashion. Similarly, outcomes are evaluated in a coordinated fashion to
evaluate accomplishment of target conditions and performance and to adjust future targets
if needed. The process in Figure 11 can be regarded as a “straw” proposal in that there are
variants that would also satisfy good asset management guidelines, but it serves well
nonetheless to illustrate the lessons of applying asset management principles. Let us
discuss each of the process steps shown in Figure 11 on how asset management can be
applied in a practical setting, building upon CDOT’s current capabilities.

Goals, Objectives, and Targets

Asset management is driven by policy, expressed through goals established by the

Transportation Commission and implemented by CDOT. For pavements, for example, the
current goals call for at least 60 percent of the pavement network to be in Good or Fair
condition, with individual goals defined by functional class. Indicators of actual
accomplishment that correspond to these goals (i.e., percent of pavements actually observed
to be in Good or Fair condition) serve as Investment-level performance measures in the
Investment Category structure. Thus, a direct linkage exists between the Investment
Category structure and the program development process.

Objectives are guidelines to the process. They may represent departmental initiatives or
strategies: e.g., to shift from a “worst first” repair policy to a “preventive maintenance”
approach, or to apply more cost-effective rehabilitation in lieu of reconstruction. They may
also be issued as directives, guidelines, or encouragement of particular practices or
technologies: e.g., information on new products or suggestions to use Superpave.

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Goals, Objectives, Target

Performance Measures

PMS + MMS + GIS

Pavement Surface Treatment / Maintenance

Tradeoffs, Analytic Models (e.g., B/C)

$ to Meet Performance Targets

Surface Pavement
Treatment Program Maintenance Program

Pavement Condition, LOS,

Performance Measure Data

Figure 11. Improved Approach to Pavement Program

Development and Implementation

Targets represent proposed values of pavement performance measures or pavement

maintenance levels of service that are intended to be achieved in the proposed program.
Asset management prescribes a direct linkage between these technical measures of
performance and the more general, policy-oriented goals described above. To date, this
linkage has been established most closely with the technical measures of pavement
condition associated with the PMS. Adding pavement maintenance LOS to this
relationship enables a true consideration of pavement life-cycle costs. This more
comprehensive linkage between goals and targets can be accomplished in the following
ways:

• Incorporate an explicit consideration of the costs and the benefits of pavement

maintenance within the PMS analysis. The PMS could then be used to help guide the
establishment of target pavement maintenance LOS. This approach may require changes
to both the algorithms and the measures of pavement condition in the PMS.

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• Develop a separate economic analysis of typical costs and life extensions due to various

pavement maintenance, rehabilitation, and reconstruction activities, if these are not

available in existing management systems. Use the results of this analysis to develop
general guidelines on which activities are economically preferred under what conditions.
This analysis could be incorporated within a spreadsheet, for example.

• Apply a separate pavement life-cycle cost package to investigate the issues discussed in

the preceding item. Such packages have been developed by the Federal Highway
Administration (e.g., HERS/ST, EAROMAR). The advantage of these models over the
simpler economic analysis described above is that these models include estimates of user
costs or benefits.

Modeling capabilities are useful not only at this step, but later in the process as well when
considering capital-maintenance tradeoffs and identification of the optimal long-term
pavement strategy. Refer to the sections below entitled Analytic Models and Tradeoffs.

Application of Management Systems

The analysis of pavement preservation needs will likely continue to be processed in parallel
by PMS and MMS individually, as shown in Figure 11. While fully integrated “total asset
management systems” that incorporate pavement, bridge, maintenance, safety, and other
infrastructure management capabilities are conceivable and have been proposed, this
strategy is expensive, time consuming, and prone to risk. Many of the advantages of full
integration can be achieved using individual systems by improving ways in which
information is communicated between the different applications.

One key recommendation is to display PMS, MMS, and other management system
information on maps produced by a geographic information system (GIS). GIS displays
make it easy to highlight locations of deficient pavement condition, display multiple
performance measures and targets for each location, relate pavement condition to other
network attributes (e.g., daily traffic volume, truck traffic, road functional class, geographic
zone, pavement type), and coordinate pavement construction or maintenance work with
other project work planned on the route or corridor.

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Improved communication between systems can also be achieved by integrating measures of

condition, performance, and targets, as discussed above. For example, if the measures of
pavement condition and performance used by the PMS were enhanced to be able to capture
the beneficial changes in pavement condition due to maintenance, a basis for estimating and
communicating recommended pavement maintenance LOS could be developed in the PMS
for use in the MMS.

Analytic Models and Tradeoffs – Consequences of Different Funding Levels

One important tradeoff analysis that the PMS and MMS5 can now perform is to investigate
how potential changes in program allocation or funding level will affect resulting system
condition. This analysis can inform CDOT decisions on recommended program budget,
distribution of program funds among Regions, and responses to questions by the
Transportation Commission on the consequences of varying the amount or distribution of
program funding. This analysis can be run prior to resource allocation meetings so that
options and their consequences can be explored beforehand.

The analysis that would be performed using the PMS and the MMS, respectively, is to
relate a number of assumed program funding levels to their resulting pavement conditions.

• The PMS can be used to predict pavement condition as a function of funding level in

terms of percent Good/Fair and percent Poor. Within the PMS, the different levels of
program funding can be reflected in the input data, either directly as a set of budget
constraints or by varying technical inputs that are equivalent to these budget constraints:
e.g., different trigger condition thresholds at which remedial work will be done, or
different limits on network condition (i.e., the maximum percentage of Poor pavements
and the minimum percentage of Good/Fair pavements that are acceptable).

• The MMS reverses this process by predicting the maintenance expenditures required to

achieve a given target LOS. A range of target LOS values could thus be specified and

5
We are referring here to the performance budgeting module, the LOS Budgeting Workbook, that has been
created to complement CDOT’s MMS.

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related to the associated expenditures that are computed by the MMS. The target LOS
values can also be related directly to technical measures of the maintained condition of
the pavements (e.g., percent of cracks sealed, or percent of defects repaired).

This analysis can be performed with no change to the existing PMS and MMS, and thus
could be used as a first stage application of asset management principles to program
development in Figure 11. However, this analysis assumes that the funding levels of the
capital program and the maintenance program are still independent of each other. A
refinement of this approach would consider capital-maintenance tradeoffs as a more
advanced stage of analysis.

Analytic Models and Tradeoffs – Capital-Maintenance Tradeoffs

Past research has indicated that a comprehensive program of road surface maintenance can
extend service life by roughly two to four years as compared to a policy of no maintenance.
A tradeoff therefore exists between an approach that emphasizes maintenance and the
benefit of extended service life versus an approach that performs little or no maintenance
(with the benefit of annual maintenance cost savings) but that rehabilitates or reconstructs
the pavement at an earlier age. Viewed in its simplest form, the problem of determining the
most cost-effective level of maintenance service can be solved on an economic basis using
life-cycle cost analysis.6 Alternatively, if a PMS accounts properly for the beneficial effects
of routine maintenance on pavement condition and RSL, the decision procedures within the
PMS can likewise yield the desired solution based upon the particular decision criteria
employed.

CDOT therefore has the following options in implementing analysis of capital-maintenance

tradeoffs:

6
This analysis provides a simplified overall guideline for the most economical approach to preserving
pavement structural RSL. A given level of pavement maintenance will often be required for other reasons:
e.g., to correct local defects or premature failures, to correct a safety hazard, mitigation of damage due to
highway accidents or natural catastrophes, and so forth. These other factors are not accounted for in the
analysis.

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1. Develop the capability directly within the PMS and MMS. This would require the
following system modifications:

− Building within the PMS the ability to account for the effect of routine maintenance
LOS on the condition and RSL of pavements;

− Applying PMS decision algorithms to recommend an optimal pavement maintenance

LOS;

− Having the PMS communicate to the MMS the optimal pavement maintenance LOS;
and

− Having the MMS communicate to the PMS periodic updates of the cost of pavement
maintenance activities.

2. Develop the capability within a specialized application (e.g., a workbook or small

computer program). This application would use input data (provided either by
automated linkages to appropriate databases, or by manual input) from the PMS and
MMS, and perform an economic life-cycle cost analysis. The recommended pavement
maintenance LOS would then serve as guidance in subsequent program analyses by the
MMS. Corresponding changes in the RSL of pavements would provide guidance in
adjusting the rate of deterioration in the RSL models of the PMS.

3. Employ life-cycle cost analyses, such as those developed by the FHWA described
earlier, to obtain the recommended pavement maintenance LOS.7

These options illustrate different approaches that can be used to achieve improved asset
management for this specific objective. The cost of each will differ, and there are different
levels of risk associated with each. If CDOT desires to employ capital-maintenance
tradeoffs, the recommended approach would be to build essentially a prototype of the

7
HERS/ST may need to be customized to provide this capability. EAROMAR can analyze different
maintenance policies, but these policy inputs would need to be translated into the equivalent LOS values
used by CDOT.

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analysis using option 2 above. This step can be accomplished at modest cost and at
minimal risk, since spreadsheet workbooks or stand-alone applications can be designed
economically and can be modified fairly easily to accommodate subsequent changes to
design. Following successful use of this application and any final adjustments, CDOT can
decide whether to continue to use the application as a stand-alone analysis, or to employ its
concepts and algorithms as the basis for design of either option 1 or option 3.

Analytic Models and Tradeoffs – User Costs and Benefits

One additional analytical capability worth mentioning is the ability to assess the impacts of
pavement investment and maintenance strategy on CDOT’s customers through estimates of
user costs.

• Procedures that account for user costs are able to consider minimization of total life-

cycle costs. Total life-cycle costs comprise the sum of agency costs (for maintenance,
rehabilitation, and reconstruction) and user costs (for travel time, vehicle operation, and
possibly accident frequency).

• Optimization of total life-cycle costs is a valid economic criterion that takes proper

account of pavement program allocation decisions on CDOT’s customers. This

approach is most effectively used to consider tradeoffs among major pavement actions:
e.g.,

− Whether to build stronger pavements having longer RSL to lengthen the interval
between rehabilitation actions (a tradeoff between initial construction cost versus the
stream of subsequent discounted rehabilitation costs); or

− To evaluate economically the most effective rehabilitation strategy, considering

different actions having different costs and extensions to life.

• Pavement life-cycle cost models such as HERS/ST and EAROMAR already incorporate

user cost models, and can be applied as supplements to CDOT’s existing management
systems if user costs are not now included in the PMS and MMS.

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• Alternatively, approximations of user costs and benefits can be built into simplified

spreadsheet models to analyze general, composite, or typical cases: e.g., by pavement

functional class.

Two basic types of relationships are represented in pavement models incorporating user
costs: 1) impact of pavement condition on user costs (significant only as pavement
condition approaches Poor); and 2) impact of construction and maintenance work zones on
user costs (a function of reduction in basic highway capacity due to the work zone, period
of work zone occupancy of the highway, average daily traffic (ADT), and traffic peaking
characteristics).8

Program Dollars to Meet Performance Targets

Given the results of the analyses in the preceding section, CDOT can use this information
as guidance in developing a recommended level of funding for pavement preservation.
Other factors will also influence this decision: e.g., the projected revenue stream,
competing needs in other programs, and policy directives and priorities.

Surface Treatment and Maintenance

The analytic methods above will also provide guidance on a recommended distribution of
funding between surface treatment and routine or preventive maintenance. From an asset
management perspective, the closer the actual distribution is to the optimal split
recommended by the economic analyses, the more cost-efficient is the result, but ultimately
the program allocations are subject to policy decisions by the Transportation Commission
and CDOT.

Approved program allocations are implemented in program delivery. Asset management

encourages consideration of available alternatives in methods to deliver programs,

8
Models are structured to relate pavement condition and, if included, work zone configuration to user costs of
vehicle operation and travel time. Research has also been conducted by the FHWA to relate work zone
characteristics to accident frequency. Strategies that reduce user costs (i.e., by improving pavement
condition or by reducing the impact of work zones on traffic flow) result effectively in user “benefits.” The
concepts of user costs and user benefits is thus used interchangeably in this report.

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including use of departmental forces, intergovernmental arrangements with other public

sector agencies, and outsourcing to the private sector.

Monitoring – System Condition, Performance, and Level of Service

Monitoring of system condition, performance, and level of service provides information for
an important feedback loop shown in Figure 11. Periodic inspections to sample system
condition, performance measures, and LOS serve the following purposes:

• They confirm whether program investments have improved the transportation system in

the manner and degree intended, and provide an objective basis for correlating system
condition with customer perceptions of acceptability.

• They update information on the rate of deterioration in condition, performance, and level

of service, providing the basis for estimating future program needs and for validating the
predictive models used in management systems.

• They identify emerging problems that may necessitate a shift in objectives and targets of

future programs.

The process of gauging system condition and providing feedback to set priorities and
guidance for future programs that is shown in Figure 11 represents a unified approach
between the capital and the maintenance aspects of pavement preservation. This is in
contrast to the individual or “silo-based” assessments illustrated in Figure 10. The
objective is to promote complete and consistent information on pavement condition,
performance, and LOS, so that better decisions can be made for future needs in both capital
projects and maintenance, and that the PMS and the MMS can continue to provide
consistent recommendations. Working toward greater consistency has the following
implications:

• The measures of pavement condition, performance, and LOS used by PMS and MMS

should be consistent with one another. This does not mean that each system must use
the same set of measures, since they are managing different functions. What it does

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imply, however, is that the respective measures should be technically consistent with one
another in how they describe a segment of pavement.

• Surveys of condition, performance, and LOS should be coordinated as much as possible.

For example, if PMS surveys can provide information for maintenance, this would result
in both greater consistency and greater economy in annual inspections. This issue needs
to be looked at closely, however, since information needs between the two programs and
systems differ, and achieving greater unity will require a cost of modifying one or both
of the management systems and their condition or performance measures.

• Achieving greater consistency is also impeded by the different methods used within each

system to reflect highway inventory (i.e., road segmentation and attributes like
geographic zone). This is a general issue that goes beyond this example with PMS and
MMS, and is part of the consideration of information support for asset management that
is addressed in a later section.

Monitoring – Program Delivery

This process step in Figure 11 also implies monitoring of program delivery, to ensure that
the projects and services agreed to during program development and approval are in fact
performed at the route locations and with the methods, materials, and quality intended. A
related issue is the degree to which the capital projects and maintenance work actually
performed agree with the recommended projects and the LOS that are estimated in the PMS
and MMS, respectively. If actual work performed is not in general agreement with system
recommendations, the processes in Figures 10 and 11 become internally inconsistent.
Maintaining a sense of how the highway system is performing, identifying programs that
can address problems cost-effectively, and committing to accountability for results all
become more difficult if these processes are internally inconsistent. This issue has arisen in
CDOT and is dealt with further below.

Issues Regarding PMS

An advantage of focusing in detail on a specific aspect of asset management, such as the

pavement example in Figures 10 and 11, is that practical issues of implementation can be

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explored. One such issue has arisen in discussions with CDOT regarding the credibility of
PMS recommendations. In brief, the PMS has recently been updated; one of the new
capabilities is the adoption of the concept of remaining service life, or RSL, and the use of
models to project when RSL is exhausted and pavements may be due for project work.
CDOT Region managers have complained that the RSL measure is unstable9 and that
recommended projects do not reflect a realistic mix of the type of work that is actually
judged to be needed. PMS managers suggest that the problem of instability in RSL is
overstated, and work is now underway to align the predictions of a new system with actual
pavement practice.

From a perspective of asset management, the following comments are pertinent regarding
the PMS specifically:

1. A credible PMS is critical to successful asset management. CDOT is correct to address

problems in its operation and any reluctance to use its results.

2. The instability of RSL estimates in general may be due to problems in data quality from
the field inspections, to problems in PMS algorithms that process these data, or a
combination of the two. It is not unusual for pavement data to exhibit a high degree of
scatter, and there are techniques to reduce scatter (e.g., revisions in sampling and
pooling of data). There may also be issues of calibration of measurement equipment,
consistency of field data collection practices, or quality assurance in processing of
visual data. Algorithms in the PMS itself can be developed to filter unrealistic data or
to recognize and attempt to correct for unrealistic trends. CDOT PMS managers appear
to be dealing with these issues.

3. Predicted projects may not always agree with projects judged by managers to be the
correct approach, since the decision rules in PMS are idealized and simplified

9
RSL predictions are updated following periodic inspections of pavement condition. The problem of
“unstable” RSL refers to values that fluctuate from one update to the next, to the point where it is difficult to
have a clear sense of when the pavement segment is actually due for project work.

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representations of managers’ judgments. A more practical criterion for judging PMS

performance is to assess whether the pavement sections identified as candidates for
project work are in fact due for projects, based upon field visits. The fact that the
updated PMS has only recently been placed in service suggests that a trial period to test
and review the decision capabilities of PMS and to align them more closely with good
practice as reflected by the collective judgment of CDOT Region managers is
worthwhile. CDOT PMS managers appear to be dealing effectively with this issue as
well.

At a more general level, PMS credibility is an absolutely necessary condition for good asset
management practice, but it alone is not sufficient to ensure better decisions that are the
intended result of asset management. The following process improvements should also be
considered with respect to the pavement program:

• Pavement sections identified by the PMS as candidates for project work should each be

visited by Central Office and Region managers to confirm this assessment, to diagnose
any special problems that may exist at the site, and to agree upon the final project
recommendation. This procedure helps build credibility and consistency into the
program development process.

• As a technical matter, it may help to define the “window” for the upcoming annual

program to be longer than 12 months: e.g., 15 or 18 months. In other words, predictions

by the PMS of those pavement sections that will exhaust their RSL within a 15-month or
18-month period could be considered as candidates for the next annual program. Other
DOTs have found that this longer window mitigates uncertainty in the PMS predictions
of RSL, and provides flexibility to program managers in developing programs at stable
funding levels over multiple years.

• Monitoring of program delivery should ensure that the projects actually performed

conform to those agreed to in program development above. This check is necessary to

ensure that the life extension intended to be achieved by these projects will in all
likelihood be achieved overall, that a stable program can be maintained from year to

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year, and that the asset management objective of minimum long-term cost can be
achieved.

Extensions to Other Assets. The example in Figures 10 and 11 focuses on programs

affecting one asset class –pavements – to illustrate at a detailed level how asset
management recommendations are developed. The pavement example also illustrates how
recommendations in several areas often interact with one another: e.g., management
systems may need to incorporate more comprehensive or consistent performance measures,
and more effective applications of management systems and information may need to be
supported by improved business processes. A similar review can be conducted for other
asset classes (e.g., bridges) and other Investment Categories (e.g., safety and mobility). It is
in this sense that asset management truly becomes a “way of doing business” in an agency.

For example, Figures 12 and 13 compare two different approaches to managing another
asset class, bridges. Figure 12 illustrates schematically the current process, in which there
is an interaction between bridge capital repairs and maintenance based upon condition state
data in CDOT’s Pontis® bridge management database. Figure 13 illustrates a more
integrated process in which decisions on capital-maintenance tradeoffs are made based
upon an overall view of bridge needs and performance-based criteria such as benefit-cost.
Data from both the BMS and the MMS would be available for display on a GIS map,
together with information on pavements and other asset classes or programs.

Extensions to Other Programs. Additional examples of how to implement asset

management principles at a process level can be developed by considering other types of
programs. Figures 14 and 15 show how the decision processes for the Safety Investment
Category can be structured to be consistent with principles of good asset management
practice. In contrast with the pavement and bridge examples, which compare “current” to
“improved” processes, this example for safety illustrates how several elements of a program
can be brought together within a single decision-making framework.

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G oals, Targets, Condition Data Inspection Data,

LO S Targets

BM S

MMS
Bridge Elem ent Conditions
and Needs

Bridge
Bridge Condition States M aintenance
Capital Program 2& 3 for Selected Program
Elem ents

Perform ance M easures,

Perform ance M easures, Com pare with LO S Targets
Com pare with Targets

Figure 12. Current Approach to Bridge Program Development and Implementation

Goals, Objectives, Target

Performance Measures

BMS + MMS + GIS

Bridge Rehab / Maintenance Tradeoffs, Analytic

Models (e.g., B/C)

$ to Meet Performance Targets

Bridge Program Bridge Maintenance Program

Bridge Condition, LOS,

Performance Measure Data

Figure 13. Improved Approach to Bridge Program Development and Implementation

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Goals, Objectives, Target

Performance Measures

Roadway Behavior

Characteristics, Candidate Projects Safety Programs and Studies

Analysis and Tradeoffs

$ to Meet Performance Targets

Proposed Safety Program

Roadway Behavior

Safety Condition, LOS,

Performance Measure Data

Figure 14. Overall Safety Investment Category

System Q uality
R oadw ay Safety Projects and Strategic and
C andidate Projects M aintenance M obility Projects

Safety Im plications

SM S + G IS + O ther System s

A nalytic M odels, T radeoffs,

R oadw ay Safety Program D evelopm ent

$ to M eet Perform ance T argets

R oadw ay Safety Projects

Figure 15. Roadway Component of Safety

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CDOT concentrates its safety efforts in two major areas: (a) a roadway component, which
funds safety projects in the physical highway infrastructure; and (b) programs to reduce
improper driver behavior. Figure 14 depicts the overall safety program, which illustrates
these two program components. Since the behavior component affects roadway operations,
it too can be considered within the broad definition of asset management. In this context,
the two program components can be managed according to the ideas and principles
discussed in Section 1.0 and developed further in the examples given in this section. For
example:

• The roadway and the behavior programs can each be developed by considering

alternative projects and actions to accomplish the objectives in each area respectively;

• Specific objectives in each program component can be established in terms of target

values of performance measures, which also contribute a basis for prioritization;

• Tradeoffs between Safety roadway and behavior components can be evaluated in terms

of forecast improvements in performance; similarly, tradeoffs can be evaluated between

Safety and other Investment Categories;

• The most effective combination of roadway and behavior program components can be

recommended for the overall Safety Investment Category; and

• System and program delivery monitoring can be applied to assess the performance of

each program, allowing for contributing factors from other sources (refer to following
discussion).

While the Safety Investment Category serves to fund specific programs and projects that
directly reduce accident risk and cost, safety improvements can also result from other
Investment Categories. Figure 15 illustrates this for the roadway component where, in
addition to candidate projects being considered for Safety, one can also account for the
safety implications of proposed work in other Investment Categories. From an asset
management perspective, this process is enabled by a set of safety-related performance
measures that are consistent across the Investment Categories. These performance

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measures are defined in addition to primary measures that may be needed to evaluate
projects and services in System Quality, Mobility, and the Strategic Projects. Based upon
this overarching view of proposed system performance regarding safety, a set of roadway
safety projects can be recommended as part of the Safety Investment Category process in
Figure 14.

4.3 Development of the Asset Management Plan

To deal with the breadth and complexity of asset management illustrated in Section 4.2, we
have applied the guidelines now being developed in NCHRP Project 20-24(11)
(summarized in Section 1.0) to the CDOT business processes and information technology
capabilities that were reviewed in Section 2.0. Experience from other DOTs (Section 3.0)
has also suggested new approaches.

The resulting plan is organized as a series of objectives and tasks in four key areas: policy
and institutional factors, planning and program development, program delivery, and
information and analytic tools. For each objective or task the plan identifies the responsible
CDOT organizational unit, the intended benefit, the role of the Transportation Commission
and involvement of other regional or local agencies as applicable, the timeframe in which
the recommendation is recommended for implementation, and the cost if applicable.
Timeframes have been specified as follows:

• Near-term – 2001-2001;

• Mid-term – 2003-2004; and

• Long-term – 2005 and beyond.

To keep the recommended program manageable, we have focused on descriptions of key

tasks. As the discussion of Section 4.2 indicates, however, each task is likely to entail a
number of detailed issues and interactions with other tasks that will need to be resolved. To
provide continuing guidance in this effort and high-level leadership of the several CDOT
organizational units that will necessarily be involved in plan implementation, we have

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recommended the formation of a departmental task force under the leadership of the Deputy
director.

Costs have been provided as estimated budget amounts10 for those tasks for which it appears
likely that a consultant project may be defined. Costs have not been provided for tasks
likely to be accomplished by departmental personnel, although a commitment of some time
is obviously implied.11 In many cases, these recommended tasks represent work that
department staff would have accomplished even in the absence of asset management
recommendations. What asset management has provided is a perspective on certain
objectives that the tasks should accomplish. In this way, asset management becomes
ingrained as a “way of doing business” within the department.

The asset management plan is summarized in Tables B through E.

10
By “budget amount” is meant the total expenditures that CDOT may wish to plan for to fund one or more
projects. For example, the recommendation of analytic tool development at an estimated cost of $1,000,000
may entail, say, up to four individual projects at $250,000 each. In some cases the full recommended amount
may not be needed (e.g., if appropriate research is sponsored by others).
11
Additional costs may need to be estimated if the decision is made to outsource some of this work.

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Table B. Asset Management Plan – Policy and Institutional Factors

Objective
CDOT Unit Timing
Responsible Intended Benefit Task and Cost

A. Designate a Establish executive 1. Designate the task Near-term

departmental task force buy-in; provide force, building upon the
under the Deputy leadership; coordinate experience of the Project
Director to guide efforts of multiple Panel for Asset
implementation of the department units. Management Plan
asset management plan. development.

Director

B. Complete and refine More comprehensive 1. Complete definition Near-term

Investment Category understanding of of statewide goals,
goals, targets, and transportation impacts targets, and performance
performance measures of total program; ability measures for all
to apply Investment programs.
DTD Categories to program
development and 2. Discuss the Near-term
tradeoff analyses completed approach with
local and regional
planning agencies.

C. Fold the performance Ability to track and 1. Apply established Near-term

measurement of all compare the results of performance measures to
programs, including all projects in a identify impacts of all
future strategic (“7th consistent manner projects, including
pot”) projects, within the strategic projects.
Mobility, Safety, and
System Quality 2. Implement Near-term
Categories procedures on a trial
basis, assess results,
DTD discuss with
Transportation
Commission, and
finalize.

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Table B. Asset Management Plan – Policy and Institutional Factors (continued)

Objective
CDOT Unit Timing
Responsible Intended Benefit Task and Cost

D. Define state interest Enhanced systemwide 1. Identify and Mid-term

in non-state-owned decisions; wider categorize non-state-
infrastructure. alternatives, potential owned assets in which
cost savings for CDOT has an interest.
EMT solutions to state
transportation problems 2. Review potential Mid-term
investment policies with
Transportation
Commission

E. Improve public and More informed and 1. Hold periodic Near-term

internal understanding committed staff; departmental workshops
and support of asset increased public to discuss asset
management techniques. awareness and support management and its
implications for
Deputy Director department activities.

2. Develop and Near-term

distribute public $75,000
information describing
asset management and its
importance.

3. Track public Mid-term

perceptions of, and
satisfaction with, asset
management
performance through
customer surveys.

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Table C. Asset Management Plan – Planning and Programming Factors

Objective
CDOT Unit Timing
Responsible Intended Benefit Task and Cost

A. Implement tiered Provide rational basis 1. Implement recommended Mid-term

classification of for standards, levels of tiered system on a trial basis
transportation assets. service, interpretation in cooperation with local and
of performance regional agencies.
DTD throughout system;
more efficient and 2. Implement final set
cost-effective asset within planning and
management. programming procedures Long-term
and management and $500,000
information systems.

B. Develop more Stronger basis for 1. Work with Regions to Mid-term,

complete scope and program delivery and define a process and $250,000
cost information for accountability. information needs.
STIP projects
(coordinate with 2. Implement by 2004. Mid-term
Program Delivery)

OFMB

C. Strengthen Increased ability to 1. Develop consistent Near-term

application of track the success of measures across Investment
performance programs in terms of Categories and programs
measures. defined goals and serving common goals (e.g.,
objectives both at the safety, pavement/
Deputy Director, agency and program maintenance, bridge/
Chief Engineer, DTD, levels maintenance)
Asset Managers,
Maintenance & Greater understanding 2. Develop specialized tools
Operations of how various for tradeoff analyses and Near- to
funding levels will promote greater integration Mid-term,
impact system among management system $1,000,000
performance and data

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Table C. Asset Management Plan – Planning and Programming Factors (continued)

Objective
CDOT Unit Timing
Responsible Intended Benefit Task and Cost

3. Develop or adapt Long-term,

applications to predict $250,000
customer impacts in terms of
user costs.

D. Review over time Objective 1. Perform the following: Long-term,

those program understanding of basis $250,000
allocations based on for allocation of • Identify program
formulas to ensure resources components subject to
consistency with “fixed” or “formula”
performance-based distributions.
asset management
• Analyze implications
Deputy Director across Regions and TPRs,
comparing formula
distributions versus
implied distributions
based upon performance
measures.

• Discuss comparison with

Transportation
Commission, CDOT
managers, local and
regional agencies.

• Implement
recommended changes.

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Table D. Asset Management Plan – Program Delivery Factors

Objective
CDOT Unit Timing
Responsible Intended Benefit Task and Cost

A. Strengthen tracking Identify opportunities 1. Develop program Mid-term,

of program delivery and for risk and cost tracking methodology $350,000
major project changes reduction; improve and system based upon
(coordinate with accountability to more complete initial
Planning and constituencies cost and scope estimates.
Programming).
2. Establish a program
Deputy Director review team to meet Mid-term
periodically to review
and approve major
changes in scope, time,
and cost.

B. Ensure consistency of Maintain program 1. Reinforce procedures Mid-term

accomplishments with consistency; ensure full to define projects by
program estimates of value received for employing information
PMS, BMS, and MMS funds expended; from management
maintain stable systems.
Chief Engineer network condition at
least life-cycle cost 2. Expand project Mid-term
delivery reports to
confirm specific project
treatments applied, or
reasons for deviation

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Table E. Asset Management Plan – Information and Analytic Factors

Objective
CDOT Unit
Responsible Intended Benefit Task Timing and Cost

A. Meet end-user Make better, 1. Conduct QA/QC Near-term

needs for complete, smarter use of checks to achieve reliable,
accurate, timely existing system credible management
information. capabilities. system operation and
predictions
Chief Engineer
2. Schedule training of
asset management staff to Near-term,
become more familiar $50,000
with full range of PMS,
BMS, MMS capabilities
and to make better use of
existing system
capabilities

3. Fill analytic gaps with

simple, quick, economical Near- to Mid-term,
tools. $200,000

B. Enhance Ensure critical 1. Reconstitute the ITRT Near-term

Information support and to provide high-level
Technology (IT) effective planning guidance for asset
support for asset for information management.
management in needs now and in
CDOT. the future. 2. Charge the ITRT to Near-term
develop and implement an
Deputy Director IT plan for asset
management (e.g., to
guide system integration
and new system
development)

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Table E. Asset Management Plan – Information and Analytic Factors (continued)

Objective
CDOT Unit
Responsible Intended Benefit Task Timing and Cost

C. Integrate asset Promote better 1. Details to be developed Mid- to Long-

management communication; in IT plan, including: term; must be
system data on better coordinated with
CDOT’s GIS. understanding of • Classification of assets other GIS
strategic and in a tiered structure; objectives;
ITRT corridor situations potential cost is at
• Integrated condition least several
and performance million dollars, not
measures, referencing exclusively for
systems, data sources; asset mgmt.

• Program and project

information to be
displayed on GIS;

• System capabilities:
displays, queries,
reports.

4.4 Implementation Plan for Near-Term Items

Several items in Tables B through E are scheduled for near-term accomplishment. Many of
these items are organizational and procedural in nature, build upon the considerable work
that CDOT already has done to promote better asset management, and entail little or no
cost. As a general rule, most of the cost items in the Asset Management Plan
recommendations relate to information technology, training, and public information, and in
these areas the proposed budgets can be adjusted to reflect current assessments of needs and
availability of research results sponsored by others. An elaboration of the near-term
objectives and suggestions for implementation follows.

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CDOT Task Force. The first task recommended for accomplishment (Table B,
Task A.1) is for CDOT to form a Task Force to oversee implementation of the Asset
Management Plan. The Task Force will assume the guiding role that has to date been
exercised by the Project Panel for this study. Early formation of the Task Force under the
leadership of the CDOT Deputy Director and breadth of representation in its membership
will help satisfy a number of objectives:

• To provide high-level leadership and demonstrate buy-in by Departmental executives

and managers that is visible and meaningful to CDOT staff and outside stakeholders;

• To translate recommendations into actions quickly, maintain a long-term perspective on

objectives and tasks, periodically assess planned versus actual accomplishments, and
perform mid-course adjustments when needed;

• To coordinate actions across Departmental organizational units, and guide development

and implementation of integrated practices where needed (e.g., data collection and
processing, evolution of GIS capabilities);

• To view the Department’s activities and decision processes from a strategic as well as

tactical perspective in applying asset management principles; and

• To provide a credible and effective organizational basis for communication of plans and

accomplishments to the Transportation Commission, and to be able to implement the

Commission’s recommendations regarding asset management efficiently and effectively.

The Task Force provides a focal point for leadership and coordination that is needed by a
topic as broad as that of asset management. In performing its responsibilities the Task
Force should heed the Transportation Commission’s concerns that asset management not
become simply another program, and the Task Force another layer of bureaucracy.12 The
premise that asset management is “a way of doing business” must be maintained by the

12
Transportation Commission workshop on this study’s recommendations, March 14, 2001.

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Task Force in its consideration of a wide range of business process and information
technology issues. A separate Task Force is recommended in lieu of enlarging the
responsibilities of existing CDOT committees or teams so as to be able to consider, at each
meeting, a number of issues and agenda items related specifically to asset management, and
to devote sufficient time to each.

Complete Investment Category Structure for Full Operational Use. CDOT’s

Investment Category structure is the foundation of the Asset Management Plan. Its
completion for full operational use entails several items discussed for near-term
accomplishment in Table B, Tasks B.1, B.2, C.1 and C.2, and Table C, Tasks C.1 and C.2:

• Complete elements of the structure: i.e., performance measures, goals, specific

numerical targets, and analytic tools (e.g., for prioritization and tradeoff analyses, on a
final or interim basis);

• Ensure consistency and effectiveness among performance measures to be able to conduct

the types of analyses discussed in this Plan: e.g., understanding the costs and the
consequences of projects, assessing tradeoffs in funding between Investment Categories
and between programs, and evaluating the consequences of several Investment
Categories jointly (e.g., with regard to safety);

• Fold performance measure targets and accomplishments associated with Strategic

(“Seventh Pot”) projects into the Mobility, System Quality, and Safety Investment
Categories; and

• Discuss key elements of the updated Investment Category process with the

Transportation Commission and regional and local planning organizations, and refine as
needed.

The Investment Category structure will likely always be in continual evolution and
advancement as new transportation needs and solutions are identified, and targets,
performance measures, and associated analytic tools adjusted accordingly. This set of tasks
therefore refers to bringing the elements of the Investment Category structure to a point of

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development where the structure functions as intended, even if some of the models or
performance measures are still tentative. It also refers to the institution of business
processes in planning, programming, and system monitoring that support and make use of
the Investment Category structure in decision-making and in communicating
recommendations and results to the Transportation Commission.

Communicate “What Is Asset Management.” Asset management is often difficult to

understand, for a number of reasons:

• It is broadly applicable to many departmental units and organizational levels;

• It is a “way of doing business” rather than a specific program or product; and

• Typically it will be tailored by different DOTs to meet different situations and needs,

thus presenting a different “look” at each location.

Asset management may therefore come across, variously, as an abstract concept or with a
certain cast – e.g., an effort perhaps focused on high-level policy planning, or a “magic
bullet” information technology solution. DOT managers and staff in field offices may
perceive it differently from those in the central office, and different organizational units
may associate it more with their particular activities rather than the broader picture that
asset management tries to address. Vagueness and possible misconceptions of asset
management can be countered with an effective communication program. Such a program
can not only de-mystify asset management and eliminate confusion as to how it relates to
other departmental initiatives, but more importantly it can help departmental units and
organizational levels understand how asset management influences and can improve the
effectiveness of their daily work.

The Asset Management Plan therefore recommends a communications program for CDOT
employees and for outside stakeholders to be undertaken in the near-term (Table B,
Tasks E.1 and E.2). The purpose is to clarify what asset management is, what are its
benefits, and how its strategic objectives translate into more effective tactical decisions.
The Plan recommends a series of periodic workshops for CDOT employees to discuss

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aspects of asset management and the current status of CDOT implementation. A budget of
$75,000 has been included for production and distribution of pamphlets or similar materials
to outside stakeholders, which can be coordinated with inclusion of this material in CDOT’s
web site. The information in this report can be used as a basis for development of
workshops and written materials, coupled with additional examples from various CDOT
functions. Michigan DOT already has a package of informational sheets on its activities
and capabilities in asset management (refer to Section 3.0). A communications component
has been added to NCHRP Project 20-24(11) to assist AASHTO member agencies in
explaining the objectives, content, and benefits of asset management generally.

Information Technology Support of Asset Management. Information systems and

analytic tools are practical necessities for good transportation asset management in a
modern DOT. Management systems provide needed information in a number of areas
related to good asset management:

• An inventory of assets to be maintained, with information on condition and performance;

• Identification of needed work to improve structural or operational performance, based

upon explicit decision rules or criteria;

• A relationship between target condition levels, performance levels, or levels of service,

and the cost to provide these levels to customers;

• An accounting for changes in assumptions regarding, for example, system usage and

topographic or climatic effects on performance and costs;

• Estimates of the consequences of budget constraints and specified activity priorities

among activities; and

• Capability to test and compare scenarios: i.e., the implications of particular assumptions

(such as regarding forecast traffic usage or revenue and funding levels), or changes in
decision rules and criteria.

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The Asset Management Plan includes a number of recommendations to enhance the role of
existing management systems and databases for asset management, and to develop new
analytic tools to fill gaps as appropriate. A commentary on the relevant near-term tasks is
as follows:

Reconstitution of ITRT

Just as asset management requires breadth in addressing business and decision processes, so
too does it entail a department-wide view of information capabilities. The Asset
Management Plan recommends that the existing ITRT be reconstituted to provide high-
level expertise regarding needed systems and data capabilities and ways to attain them
(Table E, Task B.1). While the responsibilities of this reconstituted ITRT may extend
beyond the scope of asset management, a sufficiently broad and high-level membership is
needed to comprehend fully the requirements of asset management as an integral part of
CDOT’s activities, and to develop and implement solutions at both strategic and tactical
levels. It may be helpful for the proposed CDOT Task Force on Asset Management to be
given a role in identifying candidate members of the new ITRT, and the ITRT should be
charged with a reporting responsibility to the Task Force, among other CDOT management
groups. The ITRT should be viewed as both a body representing internal CDOT
“customers” of asset management information, and a technical advisory board on systems
and data issues to the Task Force.

IT Strategic Plan

To enable the ITRT to articulate strategic directions for supporting asset management, the
Asset Management Plan recommends that the ITRT develop and implement an Information
Technology Plan (Table E, Task B.2). The objective of this IT Plan is to guide system
architecture, including issues of system integration, updating of legacy systems, and new
system development in a way that supports asset management needs throughout the
Department.

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• This Plan effectively updates work that CDOT has had underway (e.g., in data

warehouse development) since about 1990, but fills a critical gap regarding decision
support and related policy and technical information for asset management specifically.

• The IT Plan should address the several asset management systems now in use (e.g.,

PMS, BMS, MMS), other infrastructure-related systems proposed for development, and
other existing or planned systems providing relevant information important to asset
management (e.g., financial management and accounting).

• The IT Plan should consider a range of possible solutions to identified asset management

needs, ranging from relatively simple analytic tools (e.g., spreadsheets, or modest
database or program applications) to fully developed management information or
decision-support systems.

• The IT Plan should explicitly consider how information and analytic capabilities can be

integrated most effectively, including use of CDOT’s GIS. These discussions will no
doubt extend beyond asset management, but asset management must be an explicit
consideration in the recommendation of a long-term strategy and specific initial steps.

• The IT Plan should document the systems aspects of CDOT’s compliance with

GASB 34 standards and evolution of methods and information used in financial

reporting.

• The IT Plan should be updated at least every three years to account for changing needs,

advances in technology, updates of budget assumptions, and experience with capabilities

developed to date.

Credibility of Asset Management Systems

CDOT’s PMS, BMS, and MMS have recently been updated or are due for updated versions
shortly. These updates may require a trial period to resolve issues in data integrity and
accuracy of predictions. Since these management systems are critical to the performance of
good asset management overall, the Asset Management Plan identifies a specific task in

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which various departmental units should work to establish the credibility and usefulness of
these systems (Table E, Task A.1). This task entails the following:

• The basic objective should be to work toward the credibility of these systems so that

they can be reliably and effectively used in program development, system monitoring,
scenario testing, tradeoff analyses, and other analyses needed in asset management. As a
practical matter, good asset management depends upon working applications in PMS,
BMS, and MMS. Furthermore, CDOT’s intention to apply the “modified approach” for
financial reporting of infrastructure, as allowed by GASB Statement 34, essentially
requires that a PMS, BMS, and MMS be employed.

• The bar should not be set unrealistically high for establishing the credibility of these

systems. Their role is to provide reasonable estimates of deficiencies, their locations,

and recommended types of projects. These estimates should, however, be confirmed by
managers in the field prior to recommending projects.

• Relevant business processes should reinforce the use of management system

information. For example, project and program development should call for analyses of
current deficiencies as part of the normal asset management cycle, and explicit review of
system results as part of project identification and selection, proposal of maintenance
levels of service, and recommendation of annual programs and budgets.

• Monitoring of program delivery should confirm that the recommended projects and

maintenance levels of service, which were developed with the use of management
system results, have actually been performed in the manner, at the cost, and with the
outcomes as originally forecast. This check is useful not only for good asset
management and for long-term consistency between management system data and actual
field conditions, but also for validation of information on planned versus intended
condition levels and expenditures as required by the modified approach in GASB
Statement 34. Significant deviations can identify potential problem areas, and guide
updates of system information, assumptions, decision rules, and models if needed.

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Training to Use Existing Capabilities Better

Surveys of management system use nationwide indicate that the capabilities of current
applications such as PMS and BMS are typically underutilized, particularly for policy
decisions by higher levels of management. The Asset Management Plan therefore
recommends a training program to acquaint CDOT asset managers with these existing
system capabilities (Table E, Task A.2), and how they can be used in conjunction with the
analyses anticipated by the Investment Category structure. The benefit of this training will
be better and smarter use of existing system capabilities at little additional time or cost.

A primary example of underutilized system capabilities is in scenario testing, particularly to

investigate the relationship between projected annual budget levels and resulting network
conditions. The following example is developed using the Pontis® 4.0 BMS, although
analogous results can be developed for PMS and levels of service in MMS.13 The example
assumes a bridge inventory in which the age (or current condition) of bridges is assumed to
be distributed uniformly.

Three budget scenarios are investigated. Each scenario tests a particular annual expenditure
level to preserve the bridge network through a 10-year analysis period. Figure 16 plots the
condition of the bridge network versus time in years. The network-average bridge
condition is gauged by the percent of bridges with Health Index (HI, a measure of bridge
structural condition) greater than 75 on a scale from zero (poor) to 100 (excellent). Other
measures of condition, such as sufficiency rating, can also be used. The budget levels
correspond to the following projected annual expenditures:

13
The bridge management example is developed for a sample network of 500 bridges, not the CDOT bridge
inventory. The example is illustrative of the types of trends that can be expected for any inventory and set of
bridge activities and costs.

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100%

High Expenditures,
Increase Over Status Quo
Percent of Bridges with HI >75%

80%

60% Moderate Expenditures,

Maintain Status Quo

40%

No Additional Expenditures,
Do Nothing Policy
20%

0%
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time (years)

Figure 16. Example of Budget Scenarios and Effects on Network Condition

• A relatively high annual expenditure, which results in improvement of bridge network

condition through the 10-year period. This case is illustrated by the top curve in
Figure 16.

• A moderate annual expenditure, which is sufficient to maintain the status quo in network

bridge condition through the analysis period. This case is illustrated by the middle curve
in Figure 16.

• No annual expenditure, representing a “do-nothing” policy, which results in a decline of

network bridge condition through the analysis period. This case is illustrated by the
bottom curve in Figure 16.

The three scenarios each result in a markedly different result at the end of the 10-year
analysis period, and together define an envelope delimiting a range of options in funding
bridge preservation. It is possible to plot the condition level at the end of 10 years, as
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indicated in Figure 17, versus the corresponding annual budget or expenditure level. The
result is the relationship between condition level and needed expenditure as shown in
Figure 18. The inverse of this function is given in Figure 19.

100%
P lo t
Percent of Bridges with HI >75%

80%

60%

P lo t th e s e e n d
p o in ts ve rs u s
40% annual budget

20%

P lo t

0%
0 2 4 6 8 10
T im e (y e a rs )

Figure 17. Identification of Points to be Plotted to

Relate Condition and Needed Expenditure

Figures 18 and 19 capture the tradeoff between constant expenditure level and resulting
long-term condition. This relationship can be used directly as a guide identifying the
expenditure level to meet a specified target condition level. It can also be used to explore
long-term trends in network condition for different possible funding scenarios, and to
discuss these with policy-makers in a proactive way. While this example focuses on
bridges, other types of management systems also employ a scenario-testing or a similar
capability. These analyses have significant benefit for asset management generally. For
example, the curves in Figures 18 and 19 can be used for a several purposes, including
program budget recommendations, impact analyses of changes in funding levels, and
tradeoff analyses with other programs. They also form the basis for relating needed
expenditures to intended condition level in complying with the modified approach in GASB
Statement 34. These curves illustrate one potential objective of CDOT staff training.

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25

Relative Budget, $Millions / Year

20

15

10

0
0 20 40 60 80 100
Percent Bridges with HI >75% in 10 years

Figure 18. Resulting Relationship Between Network

Condition and Needed Expenditure

100
Percent Bridges with HI > 75% in 10 Years

80

60

40

20

0
0 5 10 15 20 25
Relative Budget, $Millions / Year

Figure 19. Resulting Relationship Between Annual

Expenditure and Network Condition

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Development of Analytic Tools

While existing management systems support many of the computational needs of the
Investment Category structure, there are specialized analyses that current systems do not
address. These gaps exist, for example, in economic analyses of preferred strategies that
cut across programs (e.g., capital-maintenance tradeoffs), and comparative analyses of cost
and performance tradeoffs between Investment Categories or between programs. The Asset
Management Plan envisions filling these gaps initially with simple, economical tools in lieu
of full management system design and development (Table E, Task A.3). Example
applications that can be met by these tools include performance-based budgeting, tradeoff
analyses, estimates of user costs and benefits, and provision and formatting of information
for executive-level decisions.

These analytic tools can be developed, for example, as spreadsheet workbooks or compact
programs or database applications. Such tools can exchange information electronically
with other systems if required. Their advantage is that they entail relatively low-cost and
low-risk design, production, and implementation, but provide the additional functionality
needed to gain the full advantage of the Investment Category structure. They can also be
used to strengthen existing legacy systems by updating certain calculations. They may
remain in use indefinitely in conjunction with existing legacy systems, or, when legacy
systems are due to be updated, they can provide the conceptual and logical basis for
designing their respective computations into the planned replacement system.

4.5 Implementation Roles of the EMT and the Transportation

Commission

The CDOT EMT and the Transportation Commission each can contribute to the
implementation of transportation asset management. The roles that can be played by the
EMT include the following:

• Providing an example of executive leadership and buy-in to the application of

transportation asset management in CDOT;

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• Promoting the integration of several aspects of asset management, ensuring that policy

formulation, business processes, and application of information and analytic tools are
consistent with one another; and

• Ensuring that appropriate asset management techniques are implemented at each

organizational level within CDOT, promoting better decisions based on better

information, improved stewardship of transportation infrastructure, and more cost-
effective service to customers.

The contributions that can be made by the Transportation Commission to asset management
implementation include the following:

• To interpret and exercise its functions and responsibilities in the context of

transportation asset management, such as in the following areas:

− Basing relevant policy formulation upon system information;

− Considering a range of options in each Investment Category;

− Evaluating tradeoffs among Investment Categories or among Programs within an

Investment Category;

− Reviewing program delivery; and

− Reviewing system performance in light of past investment decisions.

• To encourage CDOT implementation of asset management recommendations,

integrating improved business and decision processes with better information, analyses,
and reporting.

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5.0 Tiering of the Transportation Assets

This section presents the recommendations for tiering of the highway system elements of
the Colorado Department of Transportation’s (CDOT) infrastructure assets – both state-
owned and of state interest. The tiering or classification of other modal elements of the
state transportation system – aviation, railroads, transit, and bicycles – will be incorporated
“as is” into this research effort using the classification and tiering already developed. This
focus is on the tiering of the highway infrastructure because that is the asset type for which
there appears to be most interest and need for a modified approach to classification and
tiering. It is also the asset category for which CDOT invests the lion’s share of its nearly
$1 billion annual budget. The tiering recommendations presented here are for use as the
common tiering structure across the principal investment categories – System Quality,
Safety, Mobility, and Strategic Projects. Additional tiering that may be beneficial
specifically within an individual investment category is not covered here.

This recommended tiering structure is the second of the two major products of this research
project. The first and foremost product is the Asset Management Plan presented in
Section 4.0. While that concept asset management plan can be advanced without also
introducing the concept of tiering, tiering can provide a useful perspective regarding the
transportation assets that can assist in the understanding of customer needs and
expectations, target-setting for results, forecasting, monitoring and reporting, and
investment decision-making.

The format of this section is as follows:

• Tiering – what is it and why do it;

• Existing/recent applications of tiering at CDOT

• Need for additional tiering for the highway element of the transportation system;

• Results of outreach and research into other states; and

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• Recommended tiering structure concept for the CDOT highway element of the

transportation system.

5.1 Introduction to Tiering

Tiering is a classification or categorization scheme for the transportation system assets,

usually within a hierarchical or prioritized structure. One example of tiering that is
currently widely used by the Department is that of the three-tiered highway classification:
Interstate, National Highway System (NHS) other than Interstate, and “Other” non-NHS
roadways. The basic purpose of tiering is to assist managers and decision-makers in
making better investments to serve customers. Tiering allows decision-makers to recognize
the different customer needs and expectations and thus potentially different types and levels
of importance and investments for different tiers of the transportation system. In the CDOT
Pavement Program, for example, the desired pavement quality or condition target varies by
tier, with the highest (best) target established for Interstate, followed by NHS and then
“Other.” The Transportation Commission has established a systemwide pavement quality
objective of 85 percent “good or fair” for Interstate roadways, 70 percent good or fair for
NHS other than Interstate, and 55 percent good or fair for Other roadways. The blended
target pavement condition for the entire CDOT roadway system is 60 percent good or fair
after accounting for the number of lane-miles in each tier. The types of pavement
restoration efforts and the levels of expenditures are thus varied across roadway tiers to
achieve these Commission-established outcomes. This tiered classification scheme based
on roadway categories is currently used throughout the System Quality Program of CDOT’s
Transportation Investment Strategy, the framework for the Department’s outcome-based
budgeting process. This tiered structure is based on the development by the Federal
Highway Administration (FHWA) of the National Highway System, or NHS, and was
created from a national perspective on the state’s roadways. Figure 20 shows a map of the
CDOT 9,200 centerline-mile highway system with the three highway tiers identified.

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Figure 20. Colorado State Highway System

5.2 Other Examples of Tiering Used within CDOT

Five other examples of tiering utilized within the Department are illustrated below to
provide additional background and understanding before presenting the recommendations.
Three examples are for the highway system while the other two relate to non-highway
modes – aviation and railroads. The tiering examples shown below are:

• Highway System – Maintenance Levels of Service for Snow Removal;

• Highway System – Statewide Significant Corridors (currently inactive);

• Highway System – Strategic Projects;

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• Aviation System – Statewide Airport Roles and Functional Classification; and

• Railroads – Rail Corridors of State Significance for Preservation.

Other tiering structures can be found for various purposes ranging from urban functional
classification and congestion management monitoring to that for the Highway Performance
Monitoring System (HPMS).

Highway System Tiering – Maintenance Levels of Service for Snow Removal.

As part of the Maintenance Levels of Service effort first implemented in 1998, the desired
or targeted results and necessary levels of investment for Snow Removal and Traction
Application were developed using a tiered structure of the highway system. Snow Removal
and Traction Application accounts for some $30 million per year or nearly 20 percent of
CDOT’s $157 million annual Maintenance Budget. The tiering used for this application is
an extension of the highway category tiering presented above for the Pavement Program.
The Maintenance Levels of Service for Snow Removal extended that tiered structure by
further stratification of the highway categories into traffic volume range intervals to permit
a finer gradation of desired outcomes within each category. This approach also allowed a
segment of highway in a lower level category to receive a higher level of results if traffic
volumes warranted.

Highway System Tiering – Statewide Significant Corridors (Inactive). CDOT’s

Division of Transportation Development (DTD) created a tiered classification scheme
named the Statewide Significant Corridors (SSC) as part of the development of the first
statewide transportation plan, the 2015 Plan, in the mid 1990s. The purpose of the SSC was
to create a state-perspective version of the National Highway System classification scheme
shown earlier in Figure 20 to help with identification of priorities for the 2015 Statewide
Transportation Plan. Criteria for development of the SSC included the following:

• Interstate Mobility Connections;

• Intrastate Connectivity;

• Efficient Movement of People and Goods;

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• Intermodal Linkages; and

• Multimodal Utilization.

The highway portion of the multimodal SSC is shown on Figure 21 and was largely a high-
priority subset of the NHS network although some non-NHS highways were included.
While this initial effort at developing a state-perspective hierarchy to the highway system
was not subsequently retained, the need for a state-perspective hierarchy to the highway
system remains.

Figure 21. Statewide Significant Corridors (SSC)

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Highway System Tiering – Strategic Projects. The Strategic Projects Investment

Category is a program currently comprised of 28 high-cost, high-priority projects receiving
accelerated funding to expedite their completion. These projects were selected using the
Statewide Significant Corridors as a starting point (though not limited to the SSC) to address
three major factors:

• Corridors of state and regional significance;

• The inordinate amount of time required to complete major projects; and

• To provide for a more aggressive response to the demands for mobility.

While the development of the Strategic Projects Investment Category was not done with the
specific idea of creating a tiering structure, its effect has been to create a hierarchical
perspective on the state highway system that cuts across the roadway category tiering
structure described above. Figure 22 shows a map of the 28 Strategic Projects.

Aviation System Tiering – Division of Aeronautics’ Statewide Airport Tiering

Scheme. CDOT’s Division of Aeronautics (DOA) is charged with assisting the state’s
public-use airports in improving the state air transportation system. While the state’s
aviation system is anchored by Denver International Airport (DIA), the most modern
commercial airport in the nation and one of the busiest airports in the world, the state
Division of Aeronautics focuses its efforts on the other 78 public-use airports in the state.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has its own classification and tiering of state’s
airport system from a national perspective similar to FHWA’s National Highway System
(NHS) perspective for roadways. The DOA has implemented its own state-perspective
tiering scheme to assist it in goal setting and funding decisions with its $11 million annual
budget. The state DOA’s tiering scheme has three levels of importance – Major,
Intermediate, and Minor. Assignment of an airport to one of these tiers is based on five
factors: aviation activity level, expandability, economic impact, service area coverage and
emergency service role, and history of investment.

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Figure 22. Strategic Projects

Based on these criteria and a weighting method for their consideration, the DOA has
assigned the state’s 78 public-use airports (not including DIA) to the tiers as shown in
Figure 23. The tiering scheme developed by the DOA is being directly incorporated into the
Asset Management Plan without modification.

Railroad Tiering – Rail Corridors of State Significance for Preservation.

Colorado has approximately 3,000 miles of railroad track within its borders, with about
90% of it owned and operated by two national railroad companies - the Union Pacific (UP)
and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF). CDOT’s primary interest in railroads is in

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Figure 23. Colorado Airports by Functional Level

ensuring that existing rail rights-of-way that are of significant state interest are preserved
for possible future transportation use. CDOT is also interested in preserving the option for
possible future rail use within existing and planned highway rights of way. Freight and
passenger rail service could improve the mobility within the state as well as reduce the
demand and impacts to CDOT’s highway system.

To support these interests, CDOT identified Rail Corridors of State Significance, as shown
in Figure 24. The significant rail corridors primarily connect the urbanized communities
along the Front Range or connect the Denver metro area to points east and west. The
highest priorities among these significant rail corridors are those at risk of abandonment

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Figure 24. Significant Rail Corridors

where action by CDOT and others might be necessary to keep the right-of-way available
for transportation uses. When the North Avondale to Towner railroad line in southeast
Colorado was proposed for abandonment, CDOT purchased the line and initiated the
process for its lease and eventual sale to a short line railroad to maintain service to existing
customers. Three other existing rail lines (all owned by the Union Pacific) are high priority
corridors subject to abandonment – the Tennessee Pass Line over the Continental Divide
from Pueblo (currently unused), the Valmont Branch in the northern part of metro Denver,
and the Fort Collins Branch connecting Fort Collins and Greeley. Both the Valmont
Branch and the Fort Collins Branch have been identified in major corridor planning studies
as opportunities for future passenger rail services. This tiering of the state’s railroads and

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highways for existing or future rail use is incorporated into this Asset Management Plan
without modification.

Other Modal Classifications – Transit and Bicycles. In addition to the tiering

applications noted above, transit and bicycles deserve special mention. CDOT’s Intermodal
Program passes through Federal transit funds to various smaller communities that do not
receive direct awards from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). CDOT has classified
but not tiered the transit systems in its Intermodal Program into five categories –
specialized, rural, resort, urban, and intercity. Regarding bicycle facilities, CDOT staff has
identified a candidate list of High Priority Bicycle Corridors, but these have not been acted
upon by the Transportation Commission.

5.3 Development of Additional Tiering Perspectives for the Roadway

System

The critical lesson from the review of the existing tiered classification structures presented
above is that each tiered structure addresses a set of objectives or helps in answering a set
of questions. The answer to the question of “what should the tiered structure for the
highway system be” can best be answered if it is clear what role and purpose the tiering has
in the decision-making process, and what unmet need it serves. Section 5.3 is divided into
four subsections as follows.

• Need for a modified tiered structure;

• Results of the outreach effort;

• Results of research into tiering used by other states; and

• Recommendations.

Need for a Modified Tiered Structure for the Roadway System. The general goal
of a modified tiered structure for the roadway system is to improve the investment decision-
making process. The fact that development of additional tiering was made a part of this
Asset Management Research Project suggests that the existing tiering structure based on the

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major roadway categories from the National Highway System was not deemed adequate for
some investment decision-making or performance targeting or monitoring. The fact that
the Statewide Significant Corridors tiering scheme was developed several years ago further
supports that conclusion. The fact that the CDOT Division of Aeronautics developed its
own statewide perspective on airport tiering to complement the national FAA classification
scheme also supports this idea. Thus, it appears that the NHS-based tiering structure alone
is not deemed adequate for asset management purposes. The NHS-based tiering structure
alone does not appear to provide adequate discrimination and alignment of the roadway
system assets to understand customer expectations, support setting objectives, forecasting
results and financial requirements, making investment decisions, and monitoring and
reporting actual results. The Maintenance Levels of Service for Snow Removal addressed
this issue by introducing traffic volume range intervals to its tiering structure.

Results of the Outreach Workshop on Tiering. A half-day outreach workshop on

tiering was conducted in October 2000 as part of this Asset Management Research Project.
Its purpose was to identify the factors deemed most important to the participants in tiering
of the transportation system. Eleven Transportation Planning Regions (TPR), Metropolitan
Planning Organizations (MPOs), or transit agencies participated in the workshop,
representing a cross-section of rural and urban interests. The essence of the results was that
three categories of factors were deemed most important to the workshop participants in
terms of tiering of the transportation system:

1. Functional role of the asset (commuter, recreation, inter- versus intraregional, freight,
etc.).

2. Utilization characteristics of the asset (volume, congestion, etc.).

3. Transit, intermodal, or alternate mode aspect of the asset.

Research on Tiering by Other States Departments of Transportation. A review

of the tiering or classification schemes used by 13 other state DOTs for planning and
investment decision-making found two themes relevant to this research. One was a use of

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the NHS-based scheme similar to that used by CDOT. The other was a breakout of the
state roadway system into two major categories – interregional and intraregional – with an
emphasis on the interregional system. The rationale for this second classification scheme –
inter- versus intraregional – is that the state DOT is usually the sole provider of significant
interregional surface highway transportation, while it is a partner in the intraregional
surface transportation system. Thus the investment decision-making, goal setting,
monitoring, etc., of these two categories of assets could be significantly different even for
the same NHS roadway category. Customer expectations, goal setting, investments, and
monitoring within an intraregional setting could be viewed as part of the intraregional
system and in consultation with the intraregional agency partners, not just the state highway
system alone. Interregional goal setting, investments, and monitoring fall nearly
exclusively on the state DOT.

The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) developed its original Interregional

Road System (IRRS) Strategic Plan in 1990, with an update in 1998. The underlying
premise of the IRRS Strategic Plan is that Caltrans’ role in intraregional transportation is as
a significant partner, and its results and investments must be in consultation with its other
partners, while in interregional surface roadway transportation it is the sole significant
provider.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) recently completed its first

Interregional Corridor Study that identified two levels of interregional corridors. Specific
recommendations from that study with direct relevance to CDOT Asset Management
include the following:

• MnDOT should adopt the Interregional Corridor System into its State Transportation

Plan;

• MnDOT should establish operating guidelines for interregional corridors; and

• MnDOT should establish indicators for monitoring performance of the interregional

corridor system.

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Recommendations for Additional Tiering of the CDOT Highway System. Based

on the outreach session, discussions with CDOT staff, and research into the highway
system tiering of other states, the following five principal factors have been identified as
important to the development of additional tiering:

• NHS-based highway categories as currently used;

• Connectivity role: inter- versus intraregional;

• Traffic volumes/level of utilization;

• Freight role or level of trucking; and

• Transit role.

The general recommendation for a modified tiering structure that considers these five
factors is given below and uses an inter- vs. intraregional designation as its top-level tiering
factor.

• Tier 1 – Inter- vs. intraregional classification of the highway system, with CDOT’s

primary interest being in the interregional facilities.

• Tier 2 – Primary vs. secondary for interregional highways; other second-level tiering as

appropriate within regions for intraregional highways.

Determination of Tier 1 would be primarily related to the significance of the highway’s

function of connecting regions vs. providing travel within regions. Information required to
make this determination would include a definition of regions/communities to be connected
and travel data supporting the inter vs. intra role. Determination of Tier 2 could be based
on factors such as the NHS designation, traffic volumes, freight role or trucking level, and
transit designation and might be different for inter vs. intraregional roadways. At least a
two-level Tier 2 is suggested for the interregional highways. Second-level tiering of the
intraregional roadways would be done in consultation with the intraregional transportation
partners within the urbanized or other designated areas. It could be based on hierarchical
classifications schemes already in place for a region that account for the role that CDOT
facilities have in a blended regional highway network. Special consideration should be

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given to the intraregional segment of major interregional roadways such as I-25 through
metro Denver. Caltrans specifically highlights the dual role of such segments in its
Interregional Road System Strategic Plan. Important off-system highways should be
considered for inclusion in the CDOT tiering scheme and designated as being of
“significant state interest.” These are more likely to be located within the intraregional
highway systems as opposed to the interregional highway systems and would include
highways such as E-470 in metro Denver.

Figure 25 shows a sample assignment of CDOT’s roadway system to the interregional

category without regard to the primary or secondary level within the interregional category.

Figure 25. Proposed Interregional Corridors

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A roadway is generally determined to be interregional in nature if a high percentage

(threshold yet to be determined) of its traffic is traveling between regions, not within
regions, and if there is not a higher level roadway that can be used in its place for
interregional travel. Some CDOT highways that were originally interregional are now
intraregional because of construction of newer higher level facilities (e.g., the Interstates)
that serve the interregional trips and because of the fact that some one-time separate regions
have grown together such as Boulder and Denver. This sample tiering has results slightly
different than the Statewide Significant Corridors but may be more defensible because it
recognizes those situations where CDOT is the sole provider of surface transportation as
opposed to being a significant partner among many providers. In summary, this inter-
versus intraregional approach would help CDOT set targets for results in a fashion that
recognizes that customer needs and expectations and thus types and levels of investment are
likely to be very different in these two categories of facilities.

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