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New transportation asset management system will help track
improvements, guide decisions about resource investments

ITD will introduce a new management tool next week that will redefine the way it plans and tracks pavement and maintenance management activities.

The new Transportation Asset Management System (TAMS) will provide a wealth of information on the state highway system and help determine how to apply resources most effectively. Use of the new management system will begin Friday (Dec. 17).

ITD identified a need for an integrated management system about four years ago when a new financial system was introduced. The antiquated maintenance management system was discontinued, but not replaced.

“We recognized a need for a more robust maintenance management system,” to collect, integrate and apply information to help guide resource allocation decisions, Steve Spoor explained. Similar needs were identified to guide highway pavement investments. So an ITD team began looking for an integrated system that could do both.

ITD’s centralized pavement management system has been used for more than 30 years. The department recognized a need to provide a distributed pavement management system that is available to the districts and ITD management to make more cost-effective decisions at every level, explains Jeff Miles.

Last fall, ITD selected Agile Assets of Austin, Texas to provide the new system. Agile has been in business for nearly 30 years and is a worldwide leader in developing and delivering transportation asset management systems.

A number of neighboring states, including Oregon, Wyoming, Utah and Montana, use Agile Assets software for either pavement management or maintenance management or both, Miles said.

ITD’s system uses the best of both – pavement and maintenance management – with the ability to add other key assets to the system.

“What the system has brought us is integration of the assets we own, maintain and manage,” Spoor said. “We now have the tools to manage our assets from a system perspective.”

The new system is designed to show the relationship between inputs (activities on the transportation system) and outputs (the results of those activities). In turn, that information will be critical to future decisions about where to invest the department’s resources to obtain the best value.

It will help ITD move to a full pavement preservation strategy with the ability to focus on “best-first” project selection, Miles added.

The maintenance management component of the system will track the maintenance of the department’s assets – from highways and bridges to guardrails, signs, lights and virtually anything related to highways. The goal is to link costs and investments to condition and performance.

The Agile management system also is capable of growing with the department’s demands. Spoor said ITD will begin using a new module late next year that tracks equipment assets to help decisions about maintenance and purchases. Other modules that could be added in the future include building facilities and highway safety.