BACKGROUND
Maintaining transit capital assets in a state of good repair (SGR) is critical for transit agencies. Mature transit agencies with well-established systems are often challenged to restore existing capital assets to SGR, while for newer transit systems the challenge is to maintain assets in SGR to maximize system performance and minimize maintenance and operating costs.
Recent research has helped document the impacts and implications of SGR investments, relating these to improved asset performance. Other research has helped develop and refine the tools and approaches for predicting economic benefits of investments in transit, though mainly for investments in new or expanded transit systems rather than achieving SGR. Thus, transit agencies lack guidance, tools, and methods for calculating quantifiable benefits of SGR investments and expressing these in terms of return on investment (ROI) or other measures.
OBJECTIVE
The objective of this research is to develop guidance for calculating a return on investment (ROI) for rehabilitating or replacing existing transit assets to help achieve state of good repair (SGR). This guidance should help transit agencies identify the full impacts of SGR investments versus other investment options. The guidance should be useful to transit agencies of different sizes and modes.
STATUS: The research is complete and the final report is available here. In addition to the final report, a key product of the research is a spreadsheet tool intended for transit agency use. This tool is available with the final report.
