Over the past decade, the complexity of operations in maritime port areas has increased significantly. Considering the challenges ports are facing with the maintenance of aging infrastructures, the need for asset management efficiency within the port industry is imperative. The willingness to ensure continuous improvement has contributed to a growing interest in the measurement and benchmarking of port infrastructure performance. The paper describes the development of an international benchmarking model to measure and compare port asset performance. The model is illustrated by comparing the maintenance of quay walls and roads for three different European ports. The presented benchmark results, and the process itself, have provided asset managers with valuable insights into their maintenance performance.@en

Managerial flexibility in infrastructure investment and replacement decisions adds value. Real options analysis (ROA) captures this value under uncertain market prices. The concept of ROA is that future unfavourable payoffs can be deferred as soon as more information about market prices becomes available. The popularity of ROA is seen in a growing number of case studies on real assets. Despite its increasing popularity, ROA has not gained a foothold in public infrastructure decision making. One of the difficulties in the application of ROA is the required estimation of market variables. To avoid this, a simplified but not correct version of ROA is easily applied, referred to as a Decision Tree Approach (DTA) to ROA. Another difficulty is that infrastructure assets are subject to other types of uncertainties, defined here as asset uncertainties. This study investigates the value of managerial flexibility in a public infrastructure replacement decision. The uncertainty drivers are the strength of a bridge, political decisions regarding traffic flow and the price development of construction costs. Three valuation approaches are compared: DTA, ROA and the DT approach to ROA. Although it is complex, ROA certainly adds value in public infrastructure decision making when market price uncertainty is prevalent. However, in the absence of reasonable estimates of market variables, the DT approach to ROA is the best alternative. In the absence of market price uncertainties, ROA should be avoided DTA is to be preferred.

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Life cycle costing analysis for public infrastructure assets is not a straight forward exercise and may be sensitive to input data and calculation approaches. In general alternatives are compared on net present value (NPV) of life cycle costs (LCC) over a bounded calculation horizon. However, alternatives may differ in life cycle characteristics. Issues to address include the chosen calculation horizons, the truncation method for the end of horizon cash flows, the discount rates and inflation rates. This study investigates the deviations of NPV calculations with horizons of 100, 200 and 300 years with an NPV calculation over an infinite time hori-zon. Three public infrastructure asset case studies with their specific LCC characteristics are considered: a bridge, a high way and a dike revetment. A sensitivity analysis for the discount rate and differential inflation is performed. This study develops generic guidelines for approximation errors as a consequence of a premature truncation of cash flows in public infrastructure LCC calculations.@en

A proper allocation of risks and responsibilities is vital for the success of long-term maintenance contracts. This paper focuses on a method to identify an adequate allocation of responsibilities for the maintenance of waterworks. The Dutch agency recently started outsourcing the maintenance of their waterworks in DBFM contracts. In order to meet the Dutch Water Act during the whole life cycle of the lock, Risk Based Asset Management is contractually required. However, how to distribute the risks and responsibilities between the public and private parties is an open question. This paper presents a functional risk allocation method, existing of a risk allocation matrix and risk allocation conditions.@en

Civil infrastructure assets, such as roads, locks, bridges, treatment plants and storm surge barriers, are often characterised by long service lives and corresponding technical life cycles. When life cycles are long, the time value of money plays a role in asset management decision-making on capital investments and operation and maintenance expenditures. In this paper, a new life cycle costing (LCC) approach for discounting in two classes of maintenance optimisation models is developed. These models are the age replacement model and the interval replacement model. Three well-known LCC techniques, which are the present worth, the capital recovery and the capitalised equivalent worth, are combined and used to develop a stepwise methodology. This methodology is validated with the few case-specific mathematical equations that exist in the literature. The advantage of using this alternative LCC approach is its applicability and flexibility for reliability and maintenance engineers. The resulting LCC method builds on well-known LCC formula and enhances the understanding of the inclusion of discounting principles in reliability models. Understanding these principles makes the method flexible. Practitioners can extend or adapt the method to changing circumstances, such as additional cash flows and altering reliability modelling.@en

This paper discusses the development and first testing of a valid, reliable, functional and simple indicator, that represents the long term effect of short term decisions. Such an indicator can assist counteracting short term views in network level asset management decision making. Short-termism or myopia may occur in cases where service level agreements (SLA) are made upon for shorter time frames than the typical lifecycles of transport infrastructure. The developed indicator indicates the “discounted future maintenance demand” (DFMD) for a time period stretching beyond the initial agreement period (expressed in a monetary value). The main assumption here is that the effect of short term decisions are reflected in the future maintenance demand. The indicator was applied in a case using existing data and information sources. Use of the DFMD, together with other (related) indicators provides valuable insight in understanding long term effects of short term decisions. @en

LCC analyses (LCCA) and discounting calculations are applied by public sector organizations in the Netherlands. Still numerous misunderstandings can be recognized. An overview is given of some common misunderstandings found in Life Cycle Costing Analyses. Issues relating to public assets are: the absence of residual value, long life cycles, high investment costs, long operation and maintenance expenditures and a low discount rate. All these issues make a careful estimation of life cycles and input parameters more important than most governments and local authorities realize. Six suggestions to improve LCC analyses of public assets are given.@en

All asset-intensive organisations have some sort of asset performance targets in place. How legitimate are these targets? Are they achievable given the resources and span of the control of the manager responsible? Are they fair? Is it clear how targets for asset performance measures should be set? Drawing on performance measurement literature and current practice, we identify factors to be considered in setting targets for asset performance metrics. The resulting framework comprises four steps: 1) the identification of factors influencing the performance metric, 2) the identification of interventions within the control of the asset manager that could influence the metric, 3) data collection and statistical analysis to identify the influence of these interventions, 4) simulation of future performance of the metric to establish targets or ranges of acceptable performance. The framework is illustrated using an asset performance metric, pipe blockages, for asset managers of regional waste water assets. Findings are: 1) target setting involves a deep understanding of what influences the metric, and this requires data collection, cleaning and validation, as well as liaison with experts, 2) the importance of establishing how the metric can be influenced by factors beyond the immediate control of the asset manager, this affects its legitimacy, and 3) the opportunity presented by simulation to provide target ranges appropriate for the variability in many asset performance metrics. The absence of expected relationships raises questions about the appropriateness of the metric, the effectiveness of the work and/or the data quality. Asset managers should be careful setting targets to asset performance measures. The process developed in this paper can be used to inform target setting activities. @en

Purpose – An important feature in managing road infrastructures is the growing use of performance-based contracts (PBCs) in the delivery of maintenance. The expectations are high. But there are also risks connected to PBC. The main question for road agencies is: how to achieve as much as possible of the expected advantages while limiting the possible disadvantages? The purpose of this paper is to answer that question and explore how PBC of maintenance can be improved. Design/methodology/approach – Based on theoretical constructs this paper investigates the strategies of the English Highways Agency and the Dutch Rijkswaterstaat, when outsourcing the maintenance of their existing road infrastructures and the effects of their strategies. Findings – The paper finds that road agencies should focus on the process of interaction of the main actors involved, rather than the performance measurement systems (PMS) itself. The agencies should adjust their governance to the degree of uncertainty. PBC requires an informed and knowledgeable principal. Research limitations/implications – The in-depth study is limited to two road agencies. More systematic research is needed in linking theoretical constructs with empirical evidence from more road agencies. The method applied in this paper can be used for further research. Practical implications – The lessons drawn from the case studies offer potential benefits to other road authorities that use or consider PBC as their method of delivery of maintenance. Originality/value – Where only few empirical studies have investigated in detail the actual achievements of PBC in road maintenance, this empirical research aims to fill that gap.

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