Stretch Your Funds-With GIS
by Darwin Dahlgren and Dan Schmidt
- Limited Funding Squeezes Budgets
- Better Rehabilitation Techniques and Planning
- GIS-Work Smarter not Harder
America has built one of the largest infra-structure systems to support transportation and commerce in the industrialized world. Managing these systems has never been easy, but today-with limited funding-careful coordination is more important than ever. Thankfully, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are available to help us manage assets.
Limited Funding Squeezes Budgets [ top ]
America's infrastructure includes nearly four million
miles of highways and roads, 576,000 bridges, and many other assets
that support vehicles, pedestrians, bicyclists, etc. As a nation,
we publicly own infrastructure having a current asset value of $10,000
per household.
Past efforts to manage these assets have typically involved using the "fix the worst first" or "squeaky wheel" approaches. But as Bob Dylan sang, "The times they are a-changing"; the halcyon days of yore when we could fix our infrastructure problems simply by throwing money at them are gone.
Today, limited funding affects virtually every governmental level and agency. In Minnesota, talk of a reduction in motor vehicle registration fees may compound the problem. This-together with public demands for expanded and diversified services, federal mandates, schools, environmental cleanup, and taxpayer aversion to taxes of any kind-places responsible officials in an increasingly difficult management role where they must compete for what little funding is available. Institutional and commercial entities have not escaped the funding crunch as they strive to become globally competitive. The current situation has resulted in increased costs of maintaining these valuable assets at a time when taxpayers, shareholders, and owners are demanding more for less.
Better Rehabilitation Techniques and Planning [ top ]
New and improved rehabilitation techniques and materials are available to prolong the life of our national infrastructure. Progressive firms such as Koch Material Company are even providing performance-based warranties for road construction and rehabilitation projects. Computerized asset maintenance management systems have been implemented in numerous public agencies and private companies to better apply these new techniques and materials.
Those responsible are using these asset management systems to answer many complex management questions. These questions include how to cost-effectively identify and prioritize maintenance needs and develop multiyear work plans and corresponding budgets.
However, asset management systems do not take logistics into consideration when developing multiyear plans and budgets. The logistic adjustments to multiyear plans are usually needed to avoid excessive transportation of machinery, materials, and personnel. Also, maintenance plans developed for one asset such as pavements may also require coordination with work done by other departments such as sewer and water, as well as other capital improvement projects. Although well-engineered multiyear plans should not be influenced by citizen complaints or political priorities, in the real world these factors also create the need for logistic adjustments.
GIS-Work Smarter not Harder [ top ]
The ease at which logistic adjustments are performed can be considerably enhanced when a Geographic Information System (GIS) is integrated into the asset management processes. GIS functionality assists in performing logistic adjustments, tracking the effect of logistic adjustments, and coordinating work with other departments.
The graphics and color-coded maps produced by GIS, instead of thick reports, help to secure funding for the scheduled work by creating more effective presentations. GIS also serves as a database integration tool. The maintenance and analysis of the various asset databases such as pavements, sewers, water, signs, and signals are left up to the responsible departments, and the GIS provides the means of coordinating the information.
The complementary data analysis capabilities of asset management systems and GIS will help asset managers stretch their limited funds.
--Dahlgren and Schmidt are with Braun Intertec. Dahlgren is the instructor of the T2 workshop, "GIS as an Asset Management Tool," which was held in December and February.