American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials

Special Committee on Research and Innovation

FY2023 NCHRP PROBLEM STATEMENT TEMPLATE

Problem Number: 2023-A-08

Problem Title

Development of the AASHTO Highway Asset Risk & Resilience Manual: Phase 1

Background Information and Need For Research

Background

The US experienced 308 weather and climate related disasters since 1980 exceeding $2.085 trillion in physical losses and the loss of 14,492 lives. Between 1980-2020 the average number of billion- dollar events per year was 7.1, that number ballooned to 16.2 billion-dollar events per year on average between 2016-2020 (adjusted for Consumer Price Index). The most billion-dollar weather and climate related disasters occurred in 2020, with 22 billion-dollar events totaling $246.7 billion in losses and 553 deaths. As of September 2021, the current year is looking to break the record set in 2020 having experienced 18 billion-dollar events to date (Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters: Overview | National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) (noaa.gov)). In addition, the recently published TRB Consensus Study on Resilience Metrics notes that 6 of the world’s 10 most costly natural disasters in 2020 occurred in the United States (TRB Resilience Metrics Consensus Study, 2021). With this level of impact on the nation’s infrastructure, transportation agencies need consistent methods to support decision making to address stressors such as extreme weather and climate change in planning, design, maintenance, and operations.

The TRB Resilience Metrics Consensus Study 2021 calls for the establishment of standard methods of analysis to support benefit-cost assessment to allow agencies to understand the “buy-down” of risk from capital and maintenance investments. In addition, the study calls on Congress to consider requiring that all federal funding candidate projects that involve long-lived assets requirement undergo well defined resilience assessments that account for changing risks of natural hazards and environmental conditions stemming from climate change. The proposed project will allow AASHTO and TRB to develop industry adopted standard methods of quantitative analysis in lieu of federally developed methods.

Proposed Program of Projects

A concerted level of commitment is needed to develop a single manual to serve as the “go-to” for quantitative analysis of financial risk to agency assets and the traveling public from extreme weather and climate change. Like the Highway Capacity Manual and the Highway Safety Manual, a single resource is needed to ensure consistent methods of analysis between projects and agencies, and to ensure adoption of robust quantitative methods to support benefit-cost analysis and decision making. A single manual will allow state, MPO, federal agencies to compare project investments on a level playing field – same models, same assumptions, same thresholds of performance. A single manual will also support the instruction of how to address extreme weather and climate change in planning and engineering curriculum at Universities ensuring future Transportation Professionals are equipped with the skills needed to support the adoption of such methods into practice. Finally, a single manual will allow the incorporation of extreme weather and climate change considerations in Professional Engineering examinations to further institutionalize these concepts in future design and decision making.

This program will establish a series of individual research projects to support the development of an AASHTO Highway Asset Risk & Resilience Manual born out of NCHRP 23-09, Scoping Study to Develop the Basis for a Highway Standard to Conduct an All-Hazards Risk and Resilience Analysis and NCHRP 20-123(04) Development of a Risk Management Strategic Plan and Research Roadmap. Similar to other NCHRP research programs such as NCHRP 20-102, Impacts of Connected Vehicles and Automated Vehicles on State and Local Transportation Agencies, this is a long-term research program that will result in an industry “standard” for all-hazards risk and resilience analysis for use in design, maintenance, and planning decision-making. In addition, the program of projects will address required data sources and work to field test the Highway Asset Risk & Resilience Manual with a range of agencies as described in the following three phased approach and in the draft Research Roadmap (see last page of this document):

• Phase 1: Development of AASHTO Highway Asset Risk and Resilience Manual . An anticipated 3-year phase consisting of multiple projects and costing approximately $3,500,000. Year 1 estimated to cost $1,500,000 with years 2 and 3 estimated at $1,000,000 each. There would be multiple projects under this phase including four projects identified through NCHRP 23-09:

o Establish quantitative assessment methodology for top priority threats and assets (e.g., culverts and flooding)

o Develop historical data capture process quantitative analysis methods

o Develop quantitative resilience assessment methodology

o Establish performance metrics and thresholds for resilience and risk tolerance; provide guidance on reducing risk and improving resilience

• Phase 2: Implementation of Highway Risk and Resilience Manual. A 2-year, $2,000,000 program that would implement/apply the Highway Risk and Resilience Manual to 8-10 transportation agencies. A few potential projects in Phase II are outlined here:

o Create internal and external agency communication and collaboration practices to incorporate Highway Risk and Resilience Manual in decision making

o Develop capacity building plan to identify institutional and educational needs to incorporate Highway Risk and Resilience Manual into practice

o Pilot test Highway Risk and Resilience Manual

o Identify institutional organizational and procedural (IOP) changes and implementation strategies for the successful adoption of Highway Risk and Resilience Manual

• Phase 3: Development of Tools and Resources to Support the Highway Risk and Resilience Manual. A 2-year $1,500,000 effort to create automated, geospatial models that transportation agencies could use to implement the Highway Risk and Resilience Manual across networks or the transportation system.

o Develop stand alone, open source computer script that can work within a GIS environment to automate Highway Risk and Resilience Manual calculations across multiple assets and threats in a geo-spatial setting

o Develop spreadsheet-based tools to automate Highway Risk and Resilience Manual calculations across multiple assets and threats in a spreadsheet application

o Selecting Performance Metrics for Evaluating Effectiveness of Risk Mitigation

o Incorporating Risk Management into Maintenance Practice

o Developing New Performance Metrics for Risk Management

o Assessing the Impact of Common Risks on Federal Reporting Metrics

Literature Search Summary

Several studies on the topic of risk and resilience have been conducted through the NCHRP Process as well as FHWA and a few state DOTs. Below is a short list of some of the more relevant NCHRP projects that speak to quantitative methods of analysis for threats to asset condition and performance as well as those that worked to provide guidance on how to incorporate such analyses into decision making processes:

• NCHRP 23-09 Scoping Study to Develop the Basis for a Highway Standard to Conduct an All-Hazards Risk and Resilience Analysis

• NCHRP 20-123(04) Development of a Risk Management Strategic Plan and Research Roadmap

• NCHRP 08-113 Integrating Effective Transportation Performance, Risk, and Asset Management Practices

• NCHRP 23-08 A Guide for Incorporating Maintenance Costs into a Transportation Asset Management Plan

• NCHRP 08-36 Task 146 Incorporating Resilience Considerations in Transportation Planning, TSMO and Asset Management

• NCHRP 20-127 – Business Case and Communication Strategies for State DOT Resilience Efforts

• FHWA – Integrating Resilience into the Planning Process

• Colorado DOT - Risk and Resilience Analysis Procedure A Manual for Calculating Risk to CDOT Assets from Flooding, Rockfall, and Fire Debris Flow

Research Objective

Transportation owners and operators are responsible for the transportation system and the delivery of a range of services and functions through the management of that system. There are inherent risks involved with the management of these systems, notwithstanding aging infrastructure, and fiscally constrained resources. Many agencies are moving toward performance-based resource allocation while simultaneously recognizing risks that may undermine their strategic goals. As these risks affect every component of a highway system to a greater or lesser extent, accurately accounting for and addressing these risks within a highway agency’s enterprise-wide management program is the goal which currently lacks analysis tools.

Investing in risk and resilience strategies and enhanced recovery to reduce or eliminate the impact of external events is also paramount to ensure a thriving, viable transportation system.

Risk management requires the identification and assessment of potential threats and hazards, asset vulnerabilities from applicable threats, an evaluation of potential mitigation actions to reduce risk, a clear and easy to implement process to prioritize mitigation activities, and investment that aligns with agency strategic and performance goals. Asset management and more recently performance management, has been an ongoing focus of many research efforts. However, guidance for analytical risk assessment methods to support risk-based asset management processes is lagging. Risk assessment processes, methods, and tools are needed to integrate risk management into asset and performance management systems. In addition, an understanding of the relationship between risks and system resilience is lacking.

Basics needed:

• Adopted definitions

• Standard framework for quantitative risk based on expected financial losses to agency and traveling public

• Establishment of performance metrics for risk and resilience

• Suggested risk tolerance and resilience performance targets that agencies can customize

• Methods to incorporate climate projections into decision making

• Methods to analyze both deterministic and probabilistic input data (500-yr flood versus climate scenarios)

Future research can expand threats analyzed; assets analyzed; climate projections; life cycle cost; remaining life consideration of assets; environmental impacts, etc.

Urgency and Potential Benefits

Agencies are working to incorporate risk and resilience assessments from climate and extreme weather into their decision-making processes including design and maintenance within their overall asset management programs. However, the industry lacks a consistent, adopted method to support quantitative trade off analysis including benefit-cost assessments. As the recent TRB Resilience Metrics Consensus Study noted – the industry also lacks metrics to understand what acceptable risk is or how to measure resilience of highway systems. Without these methods or metrics, limited research dollars may be expended developing multiple methods without industry consensus as to what the target performance of system resilience should be.

The benefits of an industry adopted quantitative method of assessment of risk to highway assets and overall system resilience is the ability to understand and justify investments to maintain overall system operations and performance to withstand or rebound from climate related events when they occur. This type of proactive approach demonstrates the industry’s commitment to reducing losses to public infrastructure and the traveling public from climate related threats.

Implementation Considerations

This project proposal consists of a series of projects and phases that will result in the development of the AASHTO Highway Asset Risk and Resilience Manual and supporting case studies and software tools. The program needs a long-term financial commitment from the NCHRP program, AASHTO and USDOT in order for this to be a success. The Committee on Performance-Based Management realizes that this proposal is not a typical NCHRP project request and is ready to discuss the details of this critical program with the NCHRP staff and members of the AASHTO Research and Innovation Committee.

Recommended Research Funding and Research Period

This problem statement is asking for funding for Phase 1 of a three phase project. Total funding for all three phases is estimated at $7 million with a duration of five to seven years. Please see last page of this document for the research roadmap.

• Funding Request: Phase 1 at $3.5 million

• Duration: Phase 1 at 3 years

Problem Statement Author(S): For each author, provide their name, affiliation, email address and phone.

This problem statement was developed through the NCHRP 23-09 project: Scoping Study to Develop the Basis for a Highway Standard to Conduct an All-Hazards Risk and Resilience Analysis.

The problem statement is supported by the following AASHTO committee:

• Committee on Performance-Based Management

• Subcommittee on Risk Management

• Committee on Transportation System Security and Resilience

Potential Panel Members: For each panel member, provide their name, affiliation, email address and phone.

Please contact Matt Hardy, AASHTO Program Director for Planning and Performance Management, for a list of recommended panel members representing the AASHTO Committee on Performance-Based Management and Transportation System Security and Resilience.

Person Submitting The Problem Statement: Name, affiliation, email address and phone.

Matthew Hardy

202-624-3625

mhardy@aashto.org

Affiliation: AASHTO staff on behalf of the AASHTO Committee on Performance-Based Management, Tim Henkel, Chair.