DEVELOPMENT OF AN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY BASED

ROAD ASSET MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

D.B. Srinivas
Associate Consultant, Transportation Practice, Tata Consultancy Services, N. Delhi

K. Ramachandra Rao
Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, N. Delhi – 110 016

Abstract

India has a huge road network (33 lakh km) with a high asset value of (Rs. 3 lakh crore). So
far the focus of the road agencies in India (Public Works Departments, and National
Highway Authority of India) was on the creation of more road assets with maintenance and
management of the existing roads as low priority. However, if these roads are expected to
offer a good service over its life cycle, then there is a need for periodic maintenance. In order
to make this happen significant budgetary allocations need to be made. Optimal utilization of
resources can be achieved through a good Decision Support System (DSS) that produces
meaningful information on how and when to maintain a particular section of a road. This
paper tries to identify the objectives based on the needs of the road agencies. Moreover, it
establishes that a GIS based Road Information System is a small step forward in the
problem context.
INTRODUCTION

Since independence the main focus of the road agencies in India was to build new roads and increase
road lengths and augment capacity in order to provide mobility and accessibility to the road users. In
the process over 33 lakh km of road length was achieved. Implementation of National Highway
Development Programme (NHDP) is further augmenting the capacity. In monetary terms the value of
the created road assets is more than Rs 3 lakh crores. This gives an indication of value of the road
assets that India has created over the past several years. So far the focus of road agencies was on
creation of road assets with maintenance and management as low priority. As the roads tend to age
and deteriorate with age, the assets need to be maintained for getting a good quality of service. The
capital flows may cease to come after some time, where the focus would be solely on maintaining and
rehabilitation of these assets.

All most all the road agencies in India are till now following pre-determined norms for maintenance
and management of roads. Based on the category of the road the cycle lengths were fixed for
renewals irrespective of the actual condition of the road. In the process some road sections may be
renewed much earlier than it is required based on its condition and other roads may be delayed
because of the more traffic and usage This kind of untimely maintenance to the road sections cause
faster deteriorating of the assets. Further budget tightening and increasing demands will put pressure
on agencies to allocate money for maintenance in a more judicious manner.

Today vision of the most of the road agencies in India is to create and maintain “Safe and Efficient
Road System” In order to achieve such a Vision, road agencies need to have systematic processes
and procedures, which would enable them to take decisions based on the information available. They
need to have complete asset management framework driven by the Vision, Policies, Goals and
Objectives. Having realized this, can we achieve this over night? The answer to this is no. Various
steps need to be climbed before reaching top most step.

With the recent advances in information technology (IT), powerful computers and sophisticated
analytical tools and techniques has opened doors for making it possible to manage information i.e.
data gathering, processing, analyzing, storing, retrieving and communicating enormous quantities of
data and generate meaningful information for use in decision making and made the road asset
maintenance management a feasible solution.

This paper is presented in five sections. First section gives the introduction. Second section gives the
details of management systems for road agencies. An approach for establishing information systems
is given in the next section. In section 4 the approach to data design is elaborated. Section 5 gives the
features of GIS, which can be adopted for road asset management. Lastly the conclusions are
presented at the end.

MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS FOR ROAD AGENCIES

Based on the purpose it serves, the Management Systems for road Agencies can be differentiated
into Information Systems and Decision-Support Systems

Information Systems collects, organizes and stores data of the road network, where as Decision
Support Systems also known as executive Information systems comprise applications and modules
which have the ability to process data and produce its users in strategic planning, tactical planning,
project preparation and operations with decision oriented information. And also have ability to perform
“What If “analysis.

The table below presents type of systems and the objective it serves for a typical road agency.
Challenge lies in selecting appropriate system that fit for purpose.

Table 1: Key Objectives of Road Agencies and Appropriate Management Systems

Management System User Objective
Information System Network Information that contain data about the highway network
Decision-Support Strategic planning to develop long term plans for the highway network as
System for Strategic a whole; planning time horizons typically of five years or more; undertaken
Planning to determine what are the implications resulting from meeting objectives in
terms of future budget needs, consequential pavement conditions, user
costs, etc
Decision-Support Tactical planning/programming concerned with determining need in the
System for Tactical budget year; planning time horizons of one to three years; including
Planning identification of links or sections from the network which require treatment
and the timing of treatments, possibly in conjunction with a rolling
programme; cost estimating, prioritisation, budgeting, monitoring
Decision-Support Project preparation, including project formation and design, costing, works
System for Project order or contract preparation and issue
Preparation
Decision-Support Management of operations on a daily or weekly basis, including defining
System for Operations work to be carried out, developing appropriate costs for this in terms of
labour, equipment and materials, and making arrangements for carrying
out the work by force account or by contract, the recording of work
accomplishment, and the use of this information for monitoring and control

OVERALL APPROACH TO ESTABLISHING INTEGRATED INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Having appreciated that in order to achieve the road agencies Vision to provide “Safe and Efficient
Road Network System”, which is well maintained and managed, means they are looking for a
complete asset management solution. This is possible by following a Stage Wise Approach (Figure 1)

Stage 3: Road Asset Management System

Stage 2:Road Maintenance and Management System

Stage 1: Road Information System

FIGURE 1: ASSET MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS - STAGE WISE APPROACH

Stage 1: Road Information System

This stage involves design of appropriate data model for the envisaged system. Identification of the
appropriate database systems to store and retrieve the data, application systems to process the data
and generate information reports. The stage 1 forms a backbone for the rest of the systems and the
data collected is used for analysis purposes in rest of the stages.

Stage 2: Road Maintenance and Management System

This Stage identifies suitable application systems and modules for road maintenance and
management requirements. Data and information from Stage-1 is used by these application systems
and generate a suitable maintenance program for the road network based on the policy and standards
defined by the road agencies

Stage 3: Asset Management Systems

Once the above two stages are well established and these practices are streamlined and stabilized
across the organization then next step is to go for a complete Road Asset Management, which can be
defined as a comprehensive and structured approach to the long term management of assets as tools
for efficient and effective delivery of community benefits. Based on the organization policies, goals
and budgets and stakeholders expectations, various performance indicators and targets are defined
and monitored continuously in various aspects of the road maintenance and management.
This way the entire system designed ensures integration, which can be implemented in various stages
so that the earlier systems will form a base for the subsequent Stages.

Road Asset Management System is one that road agencies have to target for. To reach there
successfully it has to pass thorough the Stages as explained in above paragraphs. Once decided to
adopt such a system in staged manner, each stage has to stabilise itself before going to the next
stage. Stabilization here means that organization start using the system in its day-to-day work by its
users and has all the support required; like skills, manpower, systems and processes are in place.
Change in organization culture is also an important element. Suitable change management
procedures need to be adopted to manage the transition from legacy systems to computer systems.
Training to the users is one of the important component of the change management. Management
should ensure all the parallel systems should come to an end and only one systems is running. This
way each stage requires sufficient time to stabilize itself and become a routine activity in the
organization. Thus it is recommended to adopt a stage wise approach to Road Asset Maintenance
and Management.

The first step towards implementing Road Information Systems (RIS) is by establishing a system that
has data elements clearly defined for the purpose and keeping in view the integration requirements of
the various stages that forms the whole system. In the next section a detailed discussion on this
approach is presented.

APPROACH TO DATA DESIGN

Designing an appropriate data model is highly essential to any computerized systems. All data
elements have to be very clearly identified before proceeding further. Any missing data may
compromise the whole exercise but on the contrary any additional data proves costly. It should be
noted that the cost of data acquisition is likely to be the most expensive aspect of implementing and
operating a highway management system. Annual data collection costs are much higher than the cost
of purchasing the computer hardware on which runs. Hence an appropriate and suitable data model is
a backbone for an integrated system.

The outputs from a system are produced from a combination of data and models. Thus, definition of
the outputs will determine the data items that need to be collected and stored within the system. The
choice of models will also influence data requirements, since models combine data items and
parameters, using pre-defined algorithms and relationships, to produce further data items.

The following criteria should, therefore, be considered when selecting data items:

(i) Relevance -having a direct influence on the required output;

(ii) Appropriateness -both to the stage of planning and management process, and to the road
agencies capability to undertake the required data collection;
(iii) Reliability - in terms of accuracy, coverage, completeness and correctness; and
(iv) Affordability - in both financial, and staff requirement terms.

Data model would differ depending on the specific model considered. Thus, the appropriate
combination of model and data in a particular situation must be determined using the criteria defined
above. A typical data model that used in most of the highway management software’s is shown in
Figure 2.
 Long Term
Road Typical Data for Road Assets Strategic
Inventory Road Plan

Road Multi -Year

Condition Work
HDM4
Program
Traffic
Data Detailed
Bridges Project Level
Inventory Appraisal
R O A D A SSE T R O AD
D A T A B A SE INVESTMENT Policies
Bridges D E C I SI O N
Condition Standards
S U P P O R T T O OL S
Research
INPUTS OUTPUTS

FIGURE 2: TYPICAL DATA MODEL FOR HIGHWAY INFORMATION SYSTEMS

GIS AS AN APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY FOR ROAD INFORMATION SYSTEM

Geographical Information System (GIS) is an organized collection of geographic data on computers

and applications designed to efficiently capture, store, update, manipulate, analyze and display
graphically geographically referenced information. The GIS interface of the system is coupled to an
attribute information base residing in an RDBMS, thereby providing extensive database querying in a
user-friendly environment. By associating data of all kinds with points on a map, GIS can illustrate
patterns and trends that might otherwise be incomprehensive. GIS thus help road Agencies to
analyse the current status to take better decisions for implementing changes through improved
communication and thus be efficient.

Through the use of GIS technology the problems in traditional system pertaining to road information
like difficulty in archival of paper printed road maps, voluminous and scattered data, non-uniform, and
not up-to-date, difficulty in information access for the map features can be solved.

Road Agencies need to establish statewide up-to-date digital database of roads and such a system
thus facilitates accuracy and efficiency in monitoring, planning and management and also forms
backbone for the subsequent systems and overall development of the Road Network. Implementation
can be done in phase wise where road agencies can go for some select districts first phase and later
can be adopted for entire state. Other option is to go for a select road network say Core Road
Network in a first Phase and later for the rest of the road network.

Features of GIS technology that are best suited for RIS

• GIS technology has capabilities and potential to offer solutions to Road Agencies
requirements through two basic building blocks i.e. Spatial and Non Spatial data
• Spatial Data Creation (Figure 3)
- SOI Maps & Traditional Road maps
- Digitization of spatial layers from the base maps
- Collation of the data to a uniform scale and projection system
- Updated data of the road network, village points through satellite imageries
- Feature Coding of various objects- Bridges, villages
- Dynamic segmentation of roads at suitable interval (say 1km)
 Spatial Data

Non-Spatial or Attribute Data

Figure 3: GIS DATA MODEL SPATIAL AND NONSPATIAL DATA STORAGE

Advantages of GIS based Road Information Systems

GIS provides (Figure 4):

• Data organisation based on jurisdictional hierarchy
• Maps can be dynamically linked to attribute database
• Unique visualization and querying
• Intuitive and user friendly interface with custom menus, tools and buttons

FIGURE 4: FEATURES AND APPLICATIONS OF GIS BASED RIS

 • Customised standard queries can be built in the system specific to the need of the road
Agencies.
• Query Structure enables user to enter a value or select a value from the pre programmed
menu and result is displayed graphically and in tabular form or both. Some of the queries
mentioned below can be performed and get the information.
- Show Surface Condition of the SH-12 between Km 12 and Km 13
- List of MDRs renewed in the year 2000
- Important structures along the side of the SH 30
- Total Length of all weather village roads in Bareilly District
- Un connected villages with population >500 and < 1000
- Accident Black Spots or road sections prone to accidents

It is important that Road Agencies have to ensure certain key pre-requisites before taking this first
step in order to gainfully develop the system.

• Obtain genuine commitment - proceed no further without this

• Be clear on the objectives for the system, determine what components the system needs to
contain, and prepare a procurement plan to meet identified objectives
• Identify users of the system and the outputs that they will require to support them in their
management function
• Identify data and models required to produce these outputs
• •Identify appropriate software, and hardware and operating system requirements necessary to
support this

CONCLUSIONS
Time has come for road agencies to adopt computerizing systems to ensure effective road asset
management. Has explained this objective in both feasible and achievable with clarity of purpose,
requisite commitment and well-informed decision-making, regarding system strategies and
implementation framework. Road map to the Asset Management Systems has been discussed. GIS
capabilities are very well established in private market and services of those can effectively used to
develop Road Information Systems, but the objective, scope and expected usages of the
computerised Information Systems are certain decision responsibilities of road managers, which can
neither be delegated nor sharked from.

References

1. International Seminar on Highway Rehabilitation and Maintenance, New Delhi, 12-13

November 1999

2. Institutional Development Strategy Study- West Bengal State Roads Project, Consultancy
Project by Tata Consultancy Services, 2004

3. Institutional Development Strategy Study- Uttar Pradesh State Roads Project Final Report,
Tata Consultancy Services, 2004

4. Road Development Plan- VISION 2021, IRC, New Delhi