Asset Management Manual
A guide for practitioners!
Asset Management Manual
A guide for practitioners!
CARLOS RUIZ TREVIZAN, National Highways Laboratory Department, Highway office, Chile
An important component of Road Infrastructure Management is the Valorization of the Road Patrimony. It has been shown that the annual calculation of road assets enables government agencies to monitor infrastructure and minimize the loss of value of it associated with causes such as physical deterioration, underutilization or security risks. In addition to the above, the value of the Road Patrimony makes it easier for the agencies to make investment decisions as well as justifying the necessary amounts of investment in conservation of the Road infrastructure. In this way, the impact of the investments made by the State on its infrastructure that is under the direct tuition of the road agency can be determined, so that the works and conservation actions result in an increase or, at least, the maintenance of the Road Patrimony.
To calculate the Road Patrimony it is necessary to define a clear and concise methodology to achieve the objective, for which the National Directorate of Roads of Chile, due to modifications that have been made to determine the condition of the paved roads, considered necessary to update the current method of calculation, which is recommended by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) of the United Nations, for which during 2014 it hired a Consulting Company to carry out the Basic Study: "Methodology for the Determination of the Road Patrimony".
In this Basic Study the analysis, results and main conclusions were made regarding the determination of the Value of the Road Patrimony for the year 2013 according to a new methodology, where the calculation methods, the basic concepts, the databases and the program were updated computational for practical use. Depreciation methods were also determined in relation to climatic variables, traffic and in relation to their conservation, in addition new road assets were incorporated to consider all those under the administration of the National Directorate of Roads of Chile. For this calculation, the antecedents of the year 2013 of the paved national road network and the unpaved network were taken into account, considering also bridges, tunnels, bikeways and footbridges.
The PATVIAL 2.0 software, a computational application developed in this Basic Study, is used to calculate the Road Patrimony. This software automates the methodology used, regarding the entry and validation of data, determination of the value of the Road Patrimony, and analysis of results, according to the availability of information and the objectives of the project.
The calculation of the patrimony value of the paved and unpaved road network, excluding the road network under the concession system, in this Study was made for the years 2007, 2009 and 2011. In this way, information such can be obtained as the following Figure 3.3.12.1:
Figure 3.3.12.1: Investment and Value of Road Patrimony in Chile
The correlation can be obtained between the levels of investment, disaggregated in conservation as such and investment in changes of standards with the variation of the patrimony value, is a powerful indicator of the degree that reaches the management of road infrastructure from the standpoint of efficiency and effectiveness in the use of public resources.
This area of road infrastructure management is currently being strengthened with various tasks aimed at systematizing the process of determining road assets, in particular 9 types of road assets have been defined, their design life, residual useful life and criteria for reevaluation. This process is part of the need assumed by the State of Chile with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in the sense of implementing the International Accounting Standards in the Public Sector through the instructions derived and led by the General Comptroller of the Republic, is why the NICSP-CGR as they are known by its acronyms, has generated a calendar of activities that should conclude the year 2021 with the determination of the patrimony value of the road infrastructure of the whole country under a system semi-automated calculation.
The design of the patrimony value system is completely inserted in the Road Asset Management system, so it will be fed from the databases that are updated based on the information from the visual inspections, the actions on the road infrastructure, whether they are conservation or improvement activities and the financial information to capture the capitalizable expenditures that will go directly to increase the patrimony value or the necessary expense for the administration of the accounting assets.
The implementation of this indicator will require adjusting different systems, already underway, but without a doubt the internal processes will be strengthened, giving value to many intermediate activities of the entire process of asset management.
More information can be found on the website of the National Directorate of Roads of Chile, in the area of the Road Management Department, according to the link: http://www.vialidad.cl/areasdevialidad/gestionvial/Paginas/Informesyestudios.aspx .
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