Building Public Works Infrastructure Management Systems for Achieving High Return on Public Assets

Sewers, highways, and other infrastructure are public assets that can and should be managed to maximize public profit, which is measurable as total return on assets. Assets and profit include environmental, social, and economic components, many without easily determined market values. Despite difficulties, it is possible to estimate changes in infrastructure performance in ways useful to decision makers. Decision makers work at levels of policy, system, and operations management. Management issues differ from one level to another, but decisions must be consistent to yield optimum return on assets. An asset-management system to support such consistency has five stages: data collection and analysis, performance modeling, scenario generation and management alternatives, decision analysis, and management reporting. Such a system is likely to work best when the jurisdiction’s boundaries have economic, environmental, or social logic. This article describes a prototypical Integrated Infrastructure Management System (IIMS) and its application in a local-government setting.