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Transportation infrastructure asset management has mostly focused on pavement, bridges, and tunnels. However, traffic signals, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), traffic signs and markings, roadway lighting, guardrails, and barriers are all essential to the safety, mobility, accessibility, and efficiency of the surface transportation network. Furthermore, they will be critical to the reliable functioning of the rapidly evolving Connected/Autonomous Vehicle (C/AV) systems. Many newer vehicles already have limited capabilities for C/AV. Maintenance of these various elements will be even more important as the devices will need to be kept in very good functional condition. Additionally, as the technology rapidly advances, new installations, more frequent maintenance, and upgrades will be necessary to ensure optimum performance. The costs associated with these functions will rise significantly. As funding for maintenance of existing devices and systems has never been sufficient, state and local agencies must be able to demonstrate and justify the need for increased maintenance and replacement. A comprehensive asset management program that links databases of attributes, condition, and expected life-cycle with a work management system detailing maintenance and repairs is crucial. The data provides accurate information as to the scope and overall condition of the various installations, summary of costs over time, projection of scheduled replacements/upgrades, and estimations of future expenditures based on these needs. This presentation examines the challenges and solutions to establishing and sustaining a practical, feasible asset management program for signals, ITS, signs, markings, lights, and guardrails. It is based on the presenter’s article in the July, 2020 APWA Reporter. The presenter has 35 years experience in asset management as a Traffic Operations Manager and Public Works Superintendent.
Missouri American Water Company is a major water supplier in the St. Louis metro area and at the center of the distribution system is one of the most critical pump stations not only in Missouri, but in the entire American Water network—the Stratmann Pump Station. The Stratmann Pump Station was originally constructed in 1926 with an expansion in 1954. Because of the critical nature of the station, its age and condition, and an inability to get replacement parts for much of the equipment, Missouri American Water Company elected to replace the pump station in its entirety as quickly as possible. The design and construction of the new pump station was developed with a focus on reliability, operations, redundancy, and flexibility with significant input from Missouri American staff. After utilizing the combined expertise of both an engineer and contractor for the planning phase and to develop a conceptual design, the Design-Build project delivery system was used to design, permit, and construct the new 70 MGD pump station. This approach allowed for design and construction to be conducted quickly, developing many separate construction packages in a sequence that facilitated keeping the existing pump station and two 11 million gallon storage tanks operational, and to also to acquire 18 permits and construct the pump station in a critical path. Continuous communications between the Design-Build team and the Owner allowed for modifications to the original concepts and valuable Owner input throughout the entire project, allowing Missouri American to prioritize and optimize the improvements while maintaining the project budget.
With today’s ever-shrinking budgets, available resources, and increasing expectations, it is essential for Public Works managers and Supervisors to orchestrate a plan and schedule to make best use of their limited resources and to efficiently and effectively manage resources. The key is to not let the work control you but rather, to control the work through proactive planning and scheduling. Two agencies utilize technology and systems as well as age old methods to plan and schedule their maintenance work. This allows them to properly maintain their assets, prioritize work and obtain necessary resources.
Learn how Public Works departments are utilizing data to improve their winter maintenance performance. In this session we will discuss how agencies are using forecast information, Road Weather Information System…
Winter weather forecasts can be exhausting, confusing and frustrating. There is always weather that you have to deal with or pay attention to in the extended forecast. Forecasts range from heavy snow, light snow, frost, freezing rain, ice, rain. Chances for weather are 20%, 50%, 75%. Forecasters are not always right but our industry still has to rely on weather forecasts to effectively do our jobs. In this session, we will discuss what to look for in a winter weather forecast, tools to easily get quality forecasts, methods to increase your winter weather forecast confidence, and ways to organize and easily communicate forecasts to your staff and leaders.
When approaching the delivery of local services, collaborating with an outside partner can be extremely helpful for local governments. Collaboration occurs when two or more organizations work together, sharing the costs and benefits of a project to address a need in a way that achieves efficiency and effectiveness that would not be realized by one organization operating alone. It can be difficult to determine when a project is ripe for collaboration. This session highlights a decision tool that is designed to fill this need. Working through this decision matrix will assist local leaders in determining whether the conditions are right for collaboration on a project and if so, what form of collaboration will help local governments best achieve their goals. The tool is in two parts. The first part helps communities determine whether or not a collaborative arrangement is a good idea for the delivery of a specific service. The second part helps those that want to pursue a collaborative arrangement (as determined by part one) choose among the types of collaborative arrangements.
Delivering improvements to our communities through projects and maintaining the assets of our communities are at the core of what public works agencies do. Both represent the most significant long-term financial investment for any community. In this session experts will examine the relationships between projects and assets. The evolution of public works demands that both be forecasted and managed well. But what are the best, and most affordable, practices to explaining, managing, and modeling these? Does one drive the other? Is one more important? Are the necessary tools and skills the same? In small ways and big ways, public works agencies throughout the nation are answering these questions and more. This session dives into responses from five different high-performing agencies. Participants will hear from each and then discuss the best ways to learn, expand, and adapt from their approaches.
In this Point-Counter-Point debate-style presentation, two traffic operations engineers will explain why roundabouts are a leading design solution versus why traffic signals rule the intersection control world! Each side will present data on traffic volumes, traffic flow, safety, operations and maintenance, expandability and affordability for roundabouts in series versus intelligent traffic signal corridors. They report, you decide, in the Great Intersection Debate of PWX 2021.
In an era of data-driven decision-making, it is easy acquire data about so many things. The entire discipline of asset management is predicated on first acquiring condition data about your organization's infrastructure assets. But what about our most important asset, the people that do the work of public works? How do we know what our employees think of their own workplace? How do they feel about it? Find out how to measure the morale of your workgroup with a simple survey that directly informs management of what our co-workers think and feel about the workplace. Designed around Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the survey results instruct the manager on the best next step to take to improve morale in the workgroup.
In August of 2014, Washtenaw County Water Resources (WCWRC) adopted new rules requiring infiltration of the 90th percentile design storm for all new site plans. The rules permit an alternative of traditional detention storage at 120% of calculated 100-year storm capacity only if WCWRC determines that soils testing was adequate and found inadequate infiltration capacity. In 7 years, nearly 250 sites have been reviewed, and this presentation will describe the review requirements, stakeholder engagement process, outcomes, and win-win benefits to water resources AND the development community. Nearly 25% of sites have been able to eliminate detention and infiltrate the entire 100-year storm. By definition, using the 90th percentile storm (1″ in the study area) returns 90% of annual rainfall into the groundwater, a tremendous benefit to urban and suburban rivers, lakes and streams. Third party information will be provided to demonstrate that using the 90th percentile storm also provides more reliable TSS treatment than detention or mechanical separators. In most urbanized areas, communities require stormwater management with one major goal being reduction of impacts due to development. It is well known that detention basins can simulate pre-development runoff rates but they do not simulate pre-development conditions in five (5) areas. First, detention does not address added volume and thus contribute to downstream water quantity issues. Second, reduced infiltration from natural conditions is beneficial to water quality through groundwater recharge for cooler, stream inputs, steadier base flow, and TSS removal. Third, detention basins have fixed capacity and therefore very limited resiliency. Fourth, detention basins sized for 100-year storms tend to require 5-10% of the contributing land area. Fifth, think about every basin you have seen at an apartment complex and how many geese and ‘tootsie rolls’ you see surrounding them. Ewww.