1.2 Organization

Many road organizations around the world still operate using a silo-like structure, in which the various physical and operational issues such as road capacity and road safety are managed separately, i.e. with no consideration of common strategic objectives. Consequently, organizations tend to focus on the short-term, project-level management of road assets, which, in a context marked by resource shortage and competing stakeholder demands, make it difficult to attain performance goals at the network level.

This chapter discusses several topics related to adapting the structure of a road organization to unleash the potential of asset management, and support the organization in achieving its objectives. These topics comprise leadership and culture, self-assessment of current asset management practice, asset management champions and their crucial role in promoting the required changes, and the organizational structure suitable to implementing asset management. Also, it covers the personnel competencies that should be developed to meet the requirements of asset management, which fall under a number of knowledge areas thus showing the multidisciplinary nature of asset management.