Maintenance Budgeting System

The Maintenance Budgeting System estimates the cost of a proposed maintenance plan and empowers agencies to design defensible requests for their highway maintenance budgets.

Background

As states struggle to maintain, let alone expand, their highway capacity, they need to spend precious taxpayer money where it will have the most impact, to do this, states need to understand the answers to many questions: How much should it cost to provide a desired level of service? What quality of maintenance, and what resulting performance levels, can be achieved for a specified budget? How can limited funds be most fairly allocated to meet the diverse needs of individual maintenance districts?

Budgeting for highway maintenance often seems arbitrary – more of an ‘art’ than a ‘science.’ Weak and poorly supported budgets usher uncertainty and frustration rather than approval and highway service often suffers as a result.

Cambridge Systematics created the Maintenance Budgeting System to bring precision and clarity to the highway maintenance budgeting process. Maintenance Budgeting System enables a state agency to clearly and defensibly relate maintenance budgets to performance.

Benefits

• Develop Defensible Budgets – By linking level of service to maintenance cost and grounding that connection in maintenance surveys and budget data, agencies can provide well-reasoned and justifiable budget requests in terms that any road user can understand.
• Manage Your Entire Maintenance Quality Assurance Program – Because Maintenance Budgeting System relies on strong maintenance data to make defensible budgets, the system also guides agencies through the entire maintenance quality assurance process. Highway inspectors can determine the appropriate number of survey segments, generate randomized survey locations, record results, and roll-up data for statewide reporting.
• Promote Consistency and Collaboration – Rather than haggling over arbitrary dollar amounts and leaving the allocation of received funds to politics, Maintenance Budgeting System offers neutral and consistent roadway maintenance standards. The Maintenance Budgeting System is as accessible as the Internet for any number of agency-approved users, allowing transportation officials to collaboratively form an optimal budget to meet the needs of their residents.

Cambridge Systematics – The Authority on Asset Management

Cost-effective management of transportation infrastructure is a critical challenge facing transportation agencies. Asset management demands the alignment of strategies, operations, and analyses to ensure the smooth and cost-effective movement of passengers and goods.

Cambridge Systematics is a recognized leader in providing asset management services for the transportation industry. We can help you deliver more for the dollar spent, align business processes from policy to project and service delivery, eliminate redundancy and cost in data collection and usage, and improve collaboration among agencies.

Cambridge Systematics draws together our policy, planning, management, economics, engineering, and information systems expertise to develop custom solutions for each client. We have practical experience in creating the vision and, equally importantly, in managing effective implementation. Cambridge Systematics has partnered with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP), and more than 40 states to improve the quality of asset management.

Case Studies

Maintenance Quality Assurance Development – The Colorado and Idaho Departments of Transportation (DOT) contacted Cambridge Systematics for assistance in redeveloping their Maintenance Quality Assurance programs. Our analysts met these needs in fine detail – from defining what to measure and how, creating survey forms, and designing training manuals; to modeling the relationship between level of service and budget, performing quality assurance checks, and creating performance-based budget requests. The transportation agencies of Colorado and Idaho now present their governing decision-makers with robust, well-supported budget requests.

Maintenance Budgeting System Implementation – The Arizona Department of Transportation worked with Cambridge Systematics to design the Maintenance Budgeting System software application. Maintenance Budgeting System puts Arizona’s MQA program in understandable terms and within reach of the employees who need it. Survey and cost data can be imported regularly from other sources. Budget alternatives can be posed by any agency-authorized user (including decision-makers) without downloading any software, and from any computer on the Internet. Customizable reports concisely justify budget requests.

Additional Information

For additional information, contact Joseph Guerre, Principal, 617 354 0167.

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