The budgets allocated to maintenance, renewal and improvement of the railway infrastructure make Asset Management an indispensable tool. Its objective is the best performance at the lowest cost. It is a cross-cutting issue not only within the infrastructure manager organisation but also in relation to contractors.
A great number of potential benefits can arise from Asset Management. For example, it helps to link the strategic plans of the organisation with the daily on-track works and provides better results with less costs and more transparency.
The effective model of a railway infrastructure has to be able to meet the objectives of market opening to competition, technological development as well as environmental challenges. “Asset Management (AM) is a new model of management for infrastructure managers, which was developed to meet these challenges. This concept covers facilities, infrastructure and superstructure components and responds to the demands posed by the new situation of railways in Europe”, believe the European Rail Infrastructure Managers (EIM).
Asset management comprises all systems, methods, procedures and tools to optimize costs, performance and risks for the complete rail infrastructure life cycle. The aim is to rea-lize the best ‘value for money’. These optimizations shall address all infrastructure activities (building, maintenance and renewal, including machines and materials) over the whole life cycle as well as the consequences of these activities for the government as owner and for the train operators and passengers as users.
According to the new law adopted by the European Union at the beginning of July and which represents the foundation of the recast of the First Railway Package and the shaping of the Single European Railway Area, “infrastructure managers have to elaborate and keep record of their assets and of the assets they manage and which will be used to evaluate the financing necessary for their repair or replacement. It will be accompanied by information on costs with the renewal and modernisation of the infrastructure”. Infrastructure managers set a method for the distribution of costs between the different categories of services provided by railway undertakings. Member states, however, have to demand prior approval. This method will be periodically updated based on the best international practices.
The law adopted by the Parliament specifies, among others, that “to enable the establishment of appropriate and correct level of track access charges, infrastructure managers should detain and set the value of their assets and to manifest a clear understanding of cost factors in exploiting infrastructure”.
Also, according to the International Union of Railways (UIC), infrastructure managers should properly manage the information, to have direct access to all relevant data such as being aware of risks, which means that carrying on risk analyses and assessing outcomes should be a standard practice, as part of the management process. Also, the long term effects should be considered when adopting short term decisions (for example, when reviewing the life cycle costs of assets).
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