The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) has identified, in the 2021-2026 AASHTO Strategic Plan, "improve asset performance and strengthening resiliency" as priority goals for the association and its members. With a future scenario of climate change, more intense and frequent storms, water and heat-related stressors along with sea level rise will continue to impact and accelerate the deterioration of transportation assets. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) has emphasized the need to incorporate resiliency into all aspects of transportation management.  Specifically, the Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation (PROTECT) program has provided both formula and discretionary funding opportunities to help ensure surface transportation resilience to natural hazards through the support of planning activities, resilience improvements, community resilience and evacuation routes, and at-risk coastal infrastructure. With the PROTECT program and other initiatives by AASHTO and FHWA, significant advances are being made in vulnerability and criticality assessments and tools like the Resilience and Disaster Recovery (RDR) tool suite to support decision-making. While these resources are beneficial, state DOTs are faced with how to best use the “resilience toolbox” to integrate asset management priorities with resilient routes to prepare for and adapt to changing conditions and respond to and recover rapidly from natural hazard disruptions most efficiently.

The objective of this research is to develop a framework that integrates resilient route planning with asset management goals to optimize transportation investment and performance.  This would be accomplished by conducting a literature and research review on the current state of practice of how DOTs are focused on deploying asset management on identified resilient routes. With the best practices gained from the reviews, an application-based approach with examples and outcomes, and guidelines for asset management prioritization of resilient routes would be developed.

The results of this research would inform the Transportation Asset Management Plans (TAMP) and State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) on how to best optimize expenditures along resilient routes. The information will also help MPOs and RPOs plan more effective resilient focused improvements.

Status: Panel recruitment and approvals are ongoing.