1. Public Sector
MAP-21 and State of Good
Repair: Built on the right people,
processes, and products
Asset-intensive, capital-intensive, and labor-intensive transit agencies are forever engaged in trying to balance
long-term spending, operating costs, asset management, and the risks involved in moving large numbers of
people through all kinds of terrain and weather safely, quickly, responsibly, and profitably.
Federal funding is growing only minimally, and transit needs are outpacing it significantly. In 2014, according to the
American Public Transportation Association (APTA), “…people took a record 10.8 billion trips on public
transportation—the highest annual ridership number in 58 years.” This increase took place in cities and towns of all
sizes, and continued even when gas prices dropped considerably. Clearly, the only way to resolve the gap
between funding and growth is to become more efficient and make better decisions about how to invest limited
resources. The old standby of needing to “do more with less” has never been more fitting than when applied to
the transit sector.
2. 2Public Sector Industry Perspectives
MAP-21, or the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st
Century Act that was signed into law in 2012, was a
US milestone—not only because it was the first
long-term highway funding authorization enacted in
seven years, but because it created
performance-based guidelines for most efficiently
investing those funds to spur the growth and
development of the transportation infrastructure.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation,
Federal Highway Administration, transportation
authorities must use funds to support federal goals,
which include “improving safety, maintaining
infrastructure condition, reducing traffic congestion,
improving efficiency of the system and freight
movement, protecting the environment, and reducing
delays in project delivery.”
How should transit agencies go about assessing
whether the people, processes, and products they
have in place will support MAP-21 guidelines? This
paper will address that question and suggest
resources that can better position an agency
for success.
People
Acquisition of talent is becoming an increasingly
important part of a transit agency’s growth strategy.
The transit industry, like many others, is in the midst of
a major workforce transition, as baby boomers retire
and new employees must be trained to take their
places. All of the MAP-21 goals are people-dependent;
that is, the goals won’t be realized if agencies don’t
have people with the needed skillsets in the right
place at the right time.
Transit agencies can gain an edge by coming up with
new ways to acquire people with the needed skills
and also develop training and development strategies
to ensure those skills are properly honed. Deploying
an enterprise asset management (EAM) system like
Infor® EAM that leverages those qualifications at the
assignment level is key, so that agencies know that
work is being completed in the right way—per
MAP-21 guidance.
“King County Power & Facilities has completed
two federal and one state audit over the past
four years after having received a State of
Good Repair (SGR) grant. The FTA requires
multiple fields for their SGR reporting. We are
already collecting over 40 fields in Infor EAM,
so we simply open EAM and go through the
audit requirements in real time. PM schedules
for critical assets can be reviewed during the
audit meeting, printed on the spot or emailed
to them. I just don’t worry about audits like I
used to.”
—Mike Collins, Supervisor,
King County Metro Transit Division
3. 3Public Sector Industry Perspectives
Processes
The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has been
granted authority by MAP-21 to enforce a
comprehensive framework that oversees the safety of
public transportation in the United States. As a
component of this framework, MAP-21 requires FTA
funding recipients to develop and implement public
transportation agency safety plans (PTASPs) that
address performance measures, strategies, and staff
training opportunities.
So how exactly is this incorporated into an agency’s
strategic planning?
Scalability is key. Agencies of all sizes are required to
formulate individualized, actionable plans that help
control risks in their particular setting and that include
the four pillars of MAP-21 safety management:
■ Safety policies and procedures—Defining policies,
procedures, and the organizational structure
■ Safety risk management—Managing hazards to an
acceptable level of risk
■ Safety assurance—Creating process measures,
assessments, and controls to assess the
effectiveness of risk control strategies
■ Safety promotion—Establishing safety training and
risk communication practices to promote a culture
of safety
According to the FTA, “the PTASP [public
transportation agency safety plan] should be brief,
scalable, readable, and actionable…The PTASP should
be scalable to address the safety risks associated with
current and future operations of the transit agency,
commensurate with its resources and safety
responsibilities…The PTASP should focus on those
priority risks the transit agency faces, the strategies to
address those risks, and the measures for evaluating
implementation and impact of those strategies.”
An overall goal of MAP-21 is to add value to the safety
of operations without adding a lot of cost. The
legislation encourages agencies to move away from a
one-size-fits-all compliance culture and toward a more
proactive plan that includes a formulaic approach to
evaluating where an agency’s greatest
vulnerabilities lie.
“I would question anyone who feels that they can
guarantee they know precisely where their greatest
safety vulnerabilities are,” said former Federal Transit
Administrator Peter Rogoff, soon after MAP-21 was
passed. “You can’t. But you can certainly refine it. You
can certainly identify potential risks.”
Ruby
CMYK: 10, 100, 100, 2
CMYK Color Palette
Graphite
CMYK: 25, 18, 12, 55
Coral
CMYK: 0, 65, 100, 0
Amber
CMYK: 0, 38, 100, 0
Citrine
CMYK: 2, 10, 100, 0
Ruby
Light: 10, 100, 100, 2
Dark: 10, 100, 100, 22
Graphite
Light: 25, 18, 12, 55
Dark: 25, 18, 12, 75
Coral
Light: 0, 65, 100, 0
Dark: 0, 65, 100, 20
Amber
Light: 0, 38, 100, 0
Dark: 0, 65, 100, 0
Citrine
Light: 2, 10, 100, 0
Dark: 0, 38, 100, 0
Turquoise
Light: 71, 0, 48, 0
Dark: 71, 0, 48, 20
Topaz
Light: 61, 0, 0, 0
Dark: 75, 20, 0, 0
Azure
Light: 75, 20, 0, 0
Dark: 95, 45, 0, 0
Cobalt
Light: 95, 45, 0, 0
Dark: 87, 70, 0, 0
Sapphire
Light: 87, 70, 0, 0
Dark: 87, 70, 0, 20
Turquoise
CMYK: 71, 0, 48, 0
Topaz
CMYK: 61, 0, 0, 0
Azure
CMYK: 75, 20, 0, 0
Cobalt
CMYK: 95, 45, 0, 0
Sapphire
CMYK: 87, 70, 0, 0
4. 4Public Sector Industry Perspectives
Products
Under MAP-21, transit agencies are required to
develop asset management plans. These plans must
include capital asset inventories, condition
assessments, decision support tools, and investment
prioritization. Remaining unaware of how technology
deepens visibility and contributes to the MAP-21
requirement of a State of Good Repair (SGR) simply
isn’t an option for any agency competing for federal
funding, not to mention rider loyalty. In the current
environment, it is impossible to improve operations to
the point of enabling fast, informed decisions without
technological intervention.
Consider the case of the Massachusetts Bay
Transportation Authority (MBTA). After a series of
snowstorms played havoc with equipment and
schedules, an APTA report revealed that the MBTA
had failed to take basic steps practiced by other
cold-weather transit agencies. The report’s findings
seemed to support the claims of critics who have said
MBTA focuses too much on expansion projects and
not enough on maintaining its existing system. For
example, the agency didn’t have enough or the right
kind of snow-clearing equipment, and the interim
director acknowledged that such equipment had
been on hand 20 years previously, but hadn’t been
maintained. Additionally, the report stated that the
MBTA’s “budgeting process hindered the agency’s
ability to maintain infrastructure unless it breaks.
‘Preventive maintenance, predictive maintenance and
reliability centered maintenance practices are needed
to serve the complexity of the systems and support
the asset lifecycle,’ the report said.”
Leveraging technology to maintain SGR is critical. How
does it work? These six steps provide the framework:
1. Create an asset inventory. Start by creating a
benchmark that identifies the classification, hierarchy,
and attributes of every asset—equipment, vehicle,
infrastructure, or facility. An asset’s condition will be
determined based on its expected life, replacement
cost, associated risks, and priority. Using Infor EAM,
agencies can manage assets throughout their lifecycle
and establish a framework for measuring and
reporting trade-offs between performance, cost,
and risk.
Infor EAM houses all data elements associated with
asset infrastructure, including the necessary critical
groups of data: Unique identification, classification,
start of lifecycle date, estimated useful life, and
replacement cost estimate. It also contains other asset
attributes, such as history of condition assessments
and the indication of whether the asset is already part
of a funded replacement/rehab project. Infor EAM can
highlight any changes in an asset’s SGR condition,
allow drilldown into history and depreciation to show
what caused the change, and update the condition
based on inspection findings or integrated monitoring
devices. Capturing the true condition of a wide range
of equipment requires a variety of inspection types
that may include a simple numeric value, an average
of multiple values, or a formula that is weighing
several values on one inspection. Regardless of the
inspection type, the system can provide optional
electronic signatures confirming both who performed
the work and who reviewed the work, for enhanced
compliance.
5. 5Public Sector Industry Perspectives
Infor EAM’s mobile capabilities help agencies achieve
peak efficiency. To empower technicians at the point
of work, a Facility Condition Assessment can be
executed using a mobile device, based on LEED
(Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design—a
green building certification program that recognizes
best-in-class building strategies and practices)
requirements. Technicians can take photos associated
with the work, track their time, indicate any follow-up
items, and review any technical documents and
equipment history. Upon completion, the system
automatically calculates the LEED score.
Additionally, Infor EAM includes a bi-directional feed
with a GIS system that illustrates track segments and
such items as offsets, stationing markers, mile
markers, catenary poles, environmental information,
ballast type, trees, signs, signals, and points of interest
such as bike path and pedestrian crossings. As
inspectors or track walkers capture defect information,
the information can be stored and analyzed to
determine if there are high risk areas that need
attention. Inspection data can be recorded on a
mobile device for ease of entry. As inspections are
completed, the associated condition of the equipment
can be modified based on the result of inspection
formulas tied to the asset type being inspected.
Infor EAM supports best practices such as ISO-55000
(PAS 55), ISO-55001, ISO-55002, and MAP-21, and
can also be configured to meet other best practice
requirements. It has the flexibility to provide quick
updates as requirements change.
2. Identify projects. An asset’s condition, based on
inspection, age, criticality, and risk, will determine its
priority for repair or replacement. TERM Lite is an
analysis tool that helps transit agencies assess their
SGR backlog and determine the investment needed
to achieve SGR. The TERM rating scale assigns
rankings from 1 (poor) to 5 (new) to assess both the
probability of failure as well as the consequence of
failure, with assets approaching zero as they reach the
end of their scheduled useful life. In its 2010 National
State of Good Repair Assessment, the FTA defines
SGR as maintaining a transportation system in which
assets receive a score of 2.5 or better, based on
these classification rankings. These numbers act as
indicators for clear recognition of those areas that are
at risk.
3. Define prioritization criteria. Determine what
would be impacted by a service failure: critical issues
such as safety and reliability, or quality issues such as
comfort, efficiency, and enjoyment? According to the
APTA’s Capital Asset Inventory and Condition
Assessment, the ratio of age to useful life can be
used to group assets into age quintiles, which can
then be used as simple measures of asset condition:
■ 5 = 25% of useful life consumed
■ 4 = 26% to 50% of useful life consumed
■ 3 = 51% to 75% of useful life consumed
■ 2= 76% to 100% of useful life consumed
■ 1 = > 100% of useful life consumed
4. Prioritize projects. Analysis of performance targets
will surface projects with the highest priority. Use Infor
EAM’s capital planning requests feature to define and
view all the SGR needs, sorted by priority and
reviewed by category, to determine where it makes
the most sense to focus. A needs analysis can be
performed using estimated cost as well as cost
avoidance functions, to provide more options for
decision making. Once the capital planning request is
approved, it can be transitioned into a project for cost
capture and reporting.
6. 6Public Sector Industry Perspectives
5. Model investment impacts. All assets deteriorate
with age, and the anticipated useful life of the asset is
an important piece of information. However, there is
risk in focusing too much on an asset’s age.
Specifically, by relying heavily on age assessment, the
need for funding may be overstated and could
remove the incentive to devise and implement
modern maintenance practices, such as
condition-based or performance-based replacement
methodologies—and all may not be appropriate in
each situation. Determine, based on equipment type,
the best tool for the decision. Transformers, for
example, will be replaced based on age regardless of
condition due to their extreme criticality, whereas
railcars may be able to have their lives extended
based on modified maintenance practices.
6. Develop 5-year and 20-year capital improvement
plans. The FTA has mandated that, due to the aging
infrastructure within the transit industry, all agencies
must report on the current condition of their assets
and include their costs of needed repair and planned
replacement. In Infor EAM, configurable reports,
dashboards, analytics, and KPIs can be invoked to
illustrate important information based on transit critical
assets as well as supporting assets, along with their
value, class, category, and risk factor over a variety of
timelines to enable a 5-year or 20-year overview of
replacement needs.
A sophisticated and complete asset management
solution, Infor EAM helps you manage all asset types
from one system; classify and manage assets based
on criticality, safety, and risk of failure; capture asset
condition through inspection checklists; estimate
expected life and costs of needed repairs for capital
planning; and transition approved capital planning
requests to projects. With Infor EAM, you get critical
support for the three prongs in your transit agency’s
MAP-21 strategy: people, processes, and products.
“Before EAM, employees had to return to a
terminal to update work orders, which was
extremely inefficient and time consuming
considering that we manage assets spread out
across the entire city. Now users can make and
receive real-time updates while in the field,
helping to significantly speed our ability to
service each transportation fleet."
—Hoppers Hoppers, IT manager,
San Francisco Municipal Transportation
Agency (SFMTA)
