Browsing by Author "Tan, Sui G."

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Going Beyond Performance Targets in MAP-21 for Local Agencies
    Tan, Sui G. (2015-05-20)
    Since 1984, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), the San Francisco Bay Area regional planning organization (MPO), has continued to develop and enhance its pavement management system (PMS) software - StreetSaver. StreetSaver was chosen by the League of California Cities and the California State Association of Counties to power the California local streets and roads statewide needs assessment. In the MTC region, the software is used to assist all 109 local jurisdictions allocate resources, predict the future condition of their pavements, and demonstrate the effects of different funding scenarios. More recently, MTC's efforts to encourage pavement preservation strategies have also paid dividends and jurisdictions have shifted away from "worst first" strategies. The performance based, outcome-driven approach that incentivizes preventive maintenance was well documented, and has been modeled by other MPOs to meet the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21). Not surprisingly, setting the MAP-21 performance targets for pavement condition in the MTC region is straight forward. However, relating regional targets to the local environment is a different story. In order to see the fuller picture, MTC has worked with local agencies to interpret the targets and developing key performance indicators (KPI) that will help them to gauge their performance at the local level. The KPIs were developed to inform local decision making and pavement maintenance strategy decisions to support their local investment policy. Specifically, the information provided will assist local agencies in answering: What is the existing condition of the road network? What amount of funding is currently invested in pavement preservation What amount of funding is needed to achieve the state of good repair? How effective is the pavement preservation effort? The intent of the KPIs is to improve agency's overall performance and promote increased transparency and accountability for their pavement management programs, beyond the basic performance measures set in MAP-21.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Improving Data Quality for Pavement Management System
    Tan, Sui G.; Cheng, DingXin (2015-05-20)
    The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) has developed a pavement management StreetSaver program with more than 400 users in the United States. MTC uses the program to evaluate street and road condition and perform maintenance needs assessments for the 109 cities and counties in the San Francisco Bay Area. Quality pavement condition survey data is a critical component of a pavement management system. MTC has augmented a new quality acceptance (QA) program as part of its Quality Data Management Plan in 2013. The QA program is geared toward making sure consultants hired by MTC for data collection can provide quality data in a consistent manner. The objectives of the QA program are to provide consistent pavement distress identification, improve data quality, avoid untrained pavement condition raters, while providing industry standards and accountability. The QA program contains a Rater Certification Program that ensures good quality data by using certified and trained technicians for the PMS; hiring a third party and neutral institution to audit the contractors' quality control plan; and verifying the data collected by consultants and checking data collected against pavement deterioration models and curves used in the PMS database. The process provides feedback to the consultants' quality control plans and significantly improved the quality of the PMS data collected. The MTC's data quality assurance experience is expected to benefit other agencies that are using any pavement management systems.
  • Thumbnail Image
    A Multi-Objective Asset Management Approach to Evaluate Maintenance Strategies for Funding Allocation
    Chang, Carlos M.; Vavrova, Marketa; Smith, Roger E.; Tan, Sui G. (2015-05-19)
    Modern asset management aims to provide the user's expected level of service in the transportation infrastructure assets in the most cost-effective manner while also accounting for broader social and environmental impacts. The decision-making process is complex due to many potential conflicting goals that need to be balanced in the final solution. This paper describes a holistic multi-objective asset management approach to integrate environmental related measures with traditional performance measures. A robust framework for managing infrastructure assets is proposed for implementation, and a case study focused on asphalt concrete (AC) pavements demonstrates its applicability, evaluating various maintenance strategies from a multi-objective perspective. The case study shows that timely applied preservation leads to lower emissions and lower fuel consumption. In the example, savings estimates of 662,310,738 kg CO2 over a 20 year period that are equivalent to $31 million in social costs for a 940 mile network. By considering economic, environmental, and social impacts; the multi-objective asset management approach improves the decision making process and contribute to better balanced funding allocation decisions when developing maintenance strategies.