Background
Keeping public transportation systems in a state of good repair is essential to sustaining existing transportation services, providing mobility, and supporting livable communities. The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) State of Good Repair Assessment calculated a backlog of over $78 billion for state-of-good-repair investment needs for the U.S. transit system. The FTA assessment highlights the fact that U.S. public transportation agencies face an enormous set of challenges as they seek to preserve their existing capital assets. Asset preservation is an important concern not only for the older, well-established operators, but for newer transit systems as well. Transit agencies have a wide variety of assets to maintain, including, but not limited to, buses, facilities, rail cars, stations, fixed guideway, and various supporting systems. Absent adequate funds, many transit agencies could suffer significant reductions in system reliability, which may eventually result in restricted transit service.
TCRP Project E-09, State of Good Repair: Prioritizing the Rehabilitation and Replacement of Existing Capital Assets and Evaluating the Implications for Transit, resulted in development of a framework and supporting tools for prioritizing and evaluating the impacts of transit asset replacement and rehabilitation for achieving a state of good repair. This effort was intended as a foundational project to help define what analyses should be performed to support state-of-good-repair investments. TCRP Project E-09A, Guidance for Applying the State of Good Repair Prioritization Framework and Tools, was initiated to extend upon the TCRP E-09 work to further develop and enhance the state of good repair framework and supporting tools.
Objectives
The objective of this project was to develop guidance for applying the framework and tools developed previously through TCRP Project E-09 to evaluate and prioritize capital investments in transit assets for achieving a state of good repair. The research enhanced the existing framework and tools, demonstrate application of the framework and tools through a set of pilots and a transit agency workshop, and result in development of supplemental guidance for transit agencies to use to apply the framework, develop transit asset management plans, and improve the state of repair of transit capital assets.
Status
The project has been completed and has been published as TCRP Report 172, Guidance for Developing a Transit Asset Management Plan.
Available Products
TCRP Report 172, Guidance for Developing a Transit Asset Management Plan, is available for download as a PDF from the TRB website along with the companion spreadsheet tool (TAPT).
