Transportation leadership you can trust. presented to the 2009 APTA Rail Conference presented by William Robert Cambridge Systematics, Inc. June 2009 State-of-the-Art in Evaluating Transit State of Good Repair

1 Outline Defining State of Good Repair State of the practice review Case study: Virginia Department of Rail & Public Transit (DRPT) Program Guidance and Grant Evaluation System (PROGGRES) Opportunities for improvement

2 Defining SGR Difficult to define Easiest to observe in its absence Common themes Meeting a certain level of service Performing maintenance, repair, rehabilitation and renewal according to a considered agency policy Reducing or eliminating a backlog of unmet capital needs

3 Transportation Asset Management Process Policy Goals and Objectives Analysis of Options and Tradeoffs Resource Allocation Decisions FinancialStaffEquipmentOther Program and Service Delivery System Condition and Service Levels Funding Levels Customer Input PreservationOperations Capacity Expansion

4 Working Definition of SGR A state that results from application of transportation asset management concepts in which a transit agency maintains its physical assets according to a policy that minimizes asset life cycle costs while avoiding negative impacts to transit service

5 Best Practice: Collecting Inventory & Condition Data Agencies typically have some form of asset inventory Frequently shaped by NTD reporting requirements NTD reporting frequently the basis of the inventory for smaller agencies Larger agencies/rail systems typically have a much more detailed inventory Examples available of state of the art systems for Fleet Facilities Rail Bridge Maintenance management

6 Best Practice: Condition Forecasting When performed, typically model remaining service life using statistical models Relatively few systems Examples FTA TERM MBTA SGR DRPT PROGGRES

7 Best Practice: Capital Programming Scenarios Typical approach is to predict new capital needs based on time-based engineering rules Replace rail cars at 35 years Replace structure at 50 years Reflects available data Issues Results reflect engineering judgment, but have not been subjected to economic analysis Provides limited capability for “what if” analysis Supplemental analysis need to assess impacts to service of not performing recommended actions

8 Case Study: DRPT PROGGRES System Functionality Predicting capital needs for DRPT grantees Evaluating grant applications for consistency with the capital needs analysis Collating and organizing quantitative evaluations of capital grant applications using public benefit models (developed separately) and qualitative evaluations Presenting summary scores and rankings for individual capital grant line items Evaluating the impact of different DRPT capital grant funding policies

9 Case Study: DRPT PROGGRES Asset Types Supported Buses Rail rolling stock Facilities Infrastructure items Track Signage Bus shelters Miscellaneous other assets

10 Case Study: DRPT PROGGRES Modeling Approach Rolling stock Estimated service life (ESL): when a vehicle reaches its ESL, PROGGRES recommends that the vehicle be replaced Estimated service life and mileage (ESLM): actions are recommended based on estimated service life or service mileage (either can trigger an action) Stochastic version of the ESLM model (ESLMST): adds a percentage probability that an action may be triggered one or two years before or after the point predicted by ESLM Other assets Replaced/rehabilitated at their ESL, with cost spread over a specified number of years

11 Case Study: DRPT PROGGRES Example Needs Analysis

12 Case Study: DRPT PROGGRES Testing Funding Policies

13 Opportunities for Improvement in SGR Analysis Relating investment needs to impacts on service Support time-based rules with analysis of the impacts of not performing recommended preservation activities on future agency costs and transit service Backlog projections should be accompanied by information on the implications of a given investment backlog Improving upon available asset data Not practical to perform a realistic analysis for rail relying strictly upon NTD – but NTD is the only data source consistently available Improving communication Needed both within agencies and with the public

14 Questions