Highway Asset Management is a systematic approach to maintaining, improving, and managing transportation assets such as highways, bridges, freeways, cycleways, footpaths, culverts and sidewalks which incorporate engineering concepts as well as strong business practices and economic logic (OECD). In fact, it is a high-level management activity carried out by road authorities and road managers to assist balance cost, hazards, and performance where it entails data collecting, data analysis, resource allocation, and budgeting.
There is a huge demand for road infrastructure to support the national economy as an infrastructure which helps develop transportation of goods and services between different locations. Hence governments allocate and spend a considerable amount on road infrastructure annually. Legislative bodies including road development authorities and ministries have imposed significant expectations on the highway authorities, containing increased responsibility for the use of taxpayer funds. As a result, the significance of management systems is greater than ever.
Road managers play a major role in highway asset management by taking part in many aspects of road development. Road infrastructure is carried out after several discussions on investment decisions and road managers take part in these discussions to help control and save investment, funding and expenditure on the development. They work in assessing the existing road infrastructure to identify the need for urgent maintenance of them. When considered as a summary, road managers take part in road management progress from the initial stages and also they overlook the operations and maintenance.
Challenges of Highway Asset Management
Road managers face various difficulties during each stage of highway asset management. Highway asset management requires high accuracy when it comes to budget forecasts, investment decisions, operational and maintenance activities and performance control. However, with human errors and limited resources, it is quite difficult to satisfy such requirements.
Despite the tightening of budgetary allocations for road infrastructure development, it is required to maintain real-time databases with several technological investments, particularly in data management. Otherwise, road managers miss out on opportunities to maximise distribution, utilise new technologies to expand and decrease overheads, and comply with more stringent regulatory and reporting requirements if they do so. Therefore the lack of interest in technological investments is a huge challenge for road managers nowadays.
Asset management organisations focus more on their resources being overstretched in addition to controlling higher expenditures. Firms of all sizes are tested by the capabilities necessary to manage the extra challenges offered to them from time to time. As governments control and manage their retirements and transfer fund allocations for road infrastructure development, road managers have to shift their concentration to dealing with working more on the ground to collect data and information. Moreover, they have to spend a lot of time on calculations and the preparation of budgetary forecasts. Such scenarios consume a large amount of time of the road managers which they could have invested in other works such as administrative actions.
Technologies to Facilitate Transportation Asset Managers
The development of information technology and computer-based technologies have greatly impacted all the industries around the world. The highway asset management industry is also being impacted by such solutions to reduce the impact of its challenges while achieving greater outcomes with the power of advanced technologies.
The industry has shifted towards software solutions which provide greater features such as AI-driven investment tools, Asset Criticality tags, Condition-based ML algorithms and more. Such software solutions help road managers save time in a large amount while increasing their effectiveness and efficiency. Road managers do not need to visit the road sites physically and take measurements or take notes of the conditions of existing roads. Software solutions save their time and allow them to use drones, sensors, cameras and robots to collect data and information avoiding human errors during data collection.
Moreover, road managers do not need to spend so much time preparing cash flow forecasts because industry-based software solutions are capable of analysing collected information from past projects and presenting them in an interactive way where the user can understand them easily. It leads to high engagement from the user regarding any existing issues. Therefore the user takes action quickly regarding the issue avoiding risks.
Tigernix Highway Asset Management And Visualisation The Best Transportation Asset Technology Suite in Australia
Tigernix Highway Asset Management and visualisation is an out-of-the-box program suite that permits road managers to control and manage transportation resources like highways, roads, bridges, freeways and more. Tigernix arrangement plays a vital part in the management of basic resources, fitting straightforward and future-focused budget profiles, and foreseeing dangers with evaluated bits of knowledge by one screen. It works with advanced technologies with Advanced Twin, Savvy Dashboards, IIoT-driven hardware, Visual Analytics Apparatuses, GIS, AI and ML models, Prescient Models and more.
Tigernix solution is empowered with many programs to help road managers control and save investment, funding and expenditure of transportation infrastructure using AI-driven investment profiles. Its Asset Criticality Tags feature helps them to tag their road assets with 5 types of tags prepared based on criticality degrees from ‘Very Poor’ to ‘Very Good’ to prompt urgent maintenance for critical assets. It facilitates them in a convenient manner to categorise them easily.
Condition-based ML Algorithms included in Tigernix solutions allow them to get actionable insights about the reliability, criticality and remaining operability of their transportation assets. Further, the digital models illustrate real-time data while highlighting predicted parameters and even simulated information via interactive and tweakable asset models. Moreover, there are several features such as early warning systems, elastic GIS maps and IIoT-Driven CCTV And Laser Robots allowing road managers to receive notifications before the occurrence of any risks, view transportation assets via interactive GIS maps and scan the road pavement and surface conditions using robots.
Contact Tigernixto learn more about this unchallenged technology suite.
Asset Management And Visualisation Continues to Facilitate The Road Future In Australia
Mass customisation, industrial-strength innovation, shifts within the workforce. Road managers are also experiencing this revolution in the long term of highway asset management. Road managers can proactively amass the correct vision, procedure and capabilities required to enhance highway asset management with industry-based software solutions. They can use those software solutions to enhance their job role with precision, accuracy and smart technologies. As a whole road managers who are technically powered perform better than traditional road managers who stick to their traditional working principles.
The future of road asset management will be totally dependent on highway asset management and visualisation technology where future road managers have to learn and be fluent with those technologies to achieve amazing job opportunities and perform well in their workplaces. Adapting to asset management technologies helps road managers and also public sector institutions which invest a larger portion for road infrastructure development for the development of a country.
Road asset management covers a variety of procedures while assisting road managers to mitigate risks, increase productivity, make better decisions and collect data in smart ways. Therefore highway asset management and visualization technologies provide a great opportunity for road managers to enhance their working life with ease to deliver great outcomes for their stakeholders.