Asset Management and Pavement Management: Using Common Elements to Maximize Overall Benefits

The public and private sectors have been managing their assets in some form for many years. Recently, however, the concept of asset management has been formulated to draw more explicitly on the principles of business, technology, economics, and other disciplines in a systematic and integrated way. This strategy offers cost-effective and responsive advantages in managing the public’s assets. Other management systems, particularly pavement management, have preceded the current interest in asset management by several decades. Accordingly, it is useful to assess whether there are common elements between asset management and pavement management and, if so, whether the experience gained from pavement management implementation and operation can be of benefit. In a generic sense, asset management has extensive commonalities with its component systems such as pavement management. However, asset management has some issues to resolve in progressing from a framework to an operational reality. A number of ways or areas in which asset management system development and implementation can benefit from pavement management operational experience are presented. Finally, some technical, economic/technical, and institution and user opportunities for innovations and advancements in asset management systems are identified.