The development of highways assets management system

Abstract

This paper presents a development of the assets management system that purposely aspires to assist the Department of Highways (DOH), Ministry of Transportation, Thailand in managing their assets. Currently, the DOH has over hundred billions Thai Baht or approximately three billions USD in assets under management, which require a constant maintenance. The study initially focuses on an assessment of assets such as assets conditions, and the importance of each asset, in regards of engineering, economic and social impacts. After that, the results of the assessment are transformed into three indices, which are Condition Rating (CR), Asset Serviceability Index (ASI) and Priority Index (PI). Based on the indices, the system prioritizes all routine maintenance jobs under the responsible of DOH. This prioritization helps support the DOH executives in making proper judgments on how to set up an annual routine maintenance program of their assets, and manage their limited routine maintenance budget. Additionally, this system could be extended to include the scope of a budget tracking system. In this paper, the authors illustrate the development of an assets management system for twenty three groups of the DOH's assets. During the construction phrase, the research team gathered the assets information from five sub-districts in all five regions of the country. The collected data were analyzed and utilized in the pilot test of the system. In the end, the authors make conclusion and suggestions about how this system can be enhanced in the future.