Group lifecycle plan

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Introduction

Asset management is widely accepted as a means to deliver a more efficient and effective approach to the management of highway infrastructure assets through longer term planning and ensuring that levels of service are defined and achievable for available budgets. This approach supports making the case for funding and better communication with stakeholders, therefore facilitating a greater understanding of the contribution highway infrastructure assets make to economic growth and the needs of local communities.

This document outlines the approach to lifecycle planning for highway assets for Plymouth City Council.

Principle

Principles of Lifecycle Planning for highway assets is a strategic, as opposed to tactical, approach to managing highway assets.

The process, in order, is:

• Performance expectations are established in line with the council objectives, available budget and orgaisational maintenance polices. These are used to guide the analytical process.
• Inventory and performance information are collected and analysed. This information provides input on future network requirements.
• The use of Plymouths asset management tools and reproducible procedures develops viable cost-effective strategies for budgets to satisfy authority needs and requirements, using performance expectations as critical inputs.
• Alternative choices are then evaluated, consistent with long-term plans, policies, and goals. The entire process is re-evaluated annually through performance monitoring and systematic processes.

Objective

As set out in the Highways Infrastructure Asset Management Guidance Document (HMEP) the objectives of lifecycle plans for major assets are to:

• Identify long-term investment for highway infrastructure assets and develop an appropriate maintenance strategy.
• Predict future performance of highway infrastructure assets for different levels of investment and different maintenance strategies.
• Determine the level of investment required to achieve the required performance.
• Determine the performance that will be achieved for available funding and/or future investment.
• Support decision-making, the case for investing in maintenance activities, and demonstrate the impact of different funding scenarios.
• Minimise costs over the lifecycle, whilst maintaining the required performance

Figure 1 shows the overview of the Asset Management process and Lifecycle Plan.

Lifecycle Plan Process

Lifecycle planning for highway assets consists of five main elements;

• Asset data management is the process of capturing the asset data in terms of the condition and length, this is complete through surveys in line with the data management strategy.
• Performance Indicator is the required measurement of the asset condition performance that has to be met at the end of the Lifecycle analysis.
• Lifecycle analysis model takes the asset condition data and analyses this to generate schemes/schedules of works to meet the set performance criteria.
• Work program is the list of schemes that is generated for a period of time as the outcome of the Lifecycle analysis.
• Investment program is the required budget for undertaking the schemes generated during the Lifecycle analysis to meet the estabilshed performance targets.

However, the essence of the lifecycle plan is that it is a continuous process. The most important part of a successful “Lifecycle plan” is to have connectivity between planned work, work schedules, actual work undertaken, and that data being taken into account in subsequent analysis for generating future work plans.

Highway Assets

Lifecycle Plans consider the condition of the highway asset and assess its future performance by considering available monies, agreed risk and investment policies. From this information it is possible to develop a strategy and works programme for both routine maintenance activities and structural maintenance renewal or replacement necessary to achieve the specified levels of service.

For most of the key assets (carriageways, footways, structures and street lighting) the development of the lifecycle plan is simply documenting current practices. For example, Plymouths carriageway lifecycle plans document a significant amount of detail about the strategy and planning of both routine maintenance and structural maintenance works, including how the works are identified and prioritised. The processes used have been robustly developed and include the use of many examples of best practice working from other authorities as well as locally developed methods of.

Lifecycle plans for some assets are less developed and will continue to evolve as the HIAMP is updated.

Data Management

The management of data for the highway authority is outlined in the data management strategy. Horizons is the strategic asset management software which aims to prepare programmes of works based on the current condition of the network and the prediction of the future condition of the network based on how the network has previously deteriorated. This is predominantly used for the carriageway assets but can also hold data for other assets.

The data required for lifecycle planning include:

• Inventory Data
• Performance Data
• Financial Data

The data management strategy outlines how the data above is collected, managed and maintained to support the asset management activities including lifecycle plans.

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