The design, construction, and maintenance of linear roadside landscapes is a complex element of highway asset management. The rights-of-way of the national highway network include an estimated 3.4 million acres of unpaved land as the interface between highways and natural and human landscapes. There are potential opportunities to include roadside landscape in highway asset management, including the application of geospatial information, data collection tools and technology, and data management systems to the management of roadside landscape assets. Having a system to plan roadside projects to track and document activity completion and results over time can provide an increased understanding of the evolving processes of roadside vegetation growth. Additionally, resulting maintenance treatments could result in improved life-cycle management practices and increased system resiliency. Research was needed to evaluate the state of practice and propose innovative tools and technologies for roadside landscape assets that can be used in a performance-based management system.

Under NCHRP Project 14-47, “Tools and Technology for Roadside Landscape Asset Management,” Davey Resource Group was asked to develop a guide of performance-based management strategies for the use highway roadside landscape asset management. The framework of the guide was developed to: (1) integrate roadside landscape asset management practices with established transportation asset management practices and (2) establish a taxonomy and definition of roadside landscape assets with implementation strategies on standard data collection procedures, analytical tools, and maintenance operations logistics. The framework development considered representative case studies of public and private entities from U.S. geographical regions and state DOTs with various organizational structures, implementation efforts of asset management processes, and maintenance performance assessments. 

In addition to the guide to be published as NCHRP Research Report 1155, two deliverables will be available on the TRB website at trb.org by searching for NCHRP Research Report 1155. The deliverables will be as follows: 

• The Final Report summarizing the entire research effort, NCHRP Web-Only Document 429: Investigation of Tools and Technology for Roadside Vegetation Asset Management
  
  
• Project Overview and Implementation Plan