IT Issues for the Management of High-Quantity, Low-Cost Assets

Transportation infrastructure asset management efforts have historically focused on collecting data on assets with high capital costs, such as bridges and pavements. Road signs and pavement markings, on the other hand, are high quantity, low capital cost assets but are also critical elements of the transportation infrastructure. These high quantity assets serve a critical function, safety, and thus they are receiving attention. Mandated by law, the Federal Highway Administration has been working to establish minimum retroreflectivity standards for signs and pavement markings. This paper seeks to address the information technology (IT) problems that emerge when developing an overall asset management system for high-quantity, low-cost assets. These IT problems include asset identification, asset location, data availability, data fragmentation, and automated data collection. A discussion of the issues related to these problems is presented to promote awareness of the myriad problems that do exist and to facilitate the development of more comprehensive systems to manage the automation of infrastructure asset management systems.