Under the European legislation, infrastructure managers and railway undertakings had to adopt a more business-like attitude: their management focus has shifted from technical approach towards costs and performance. For many European infrastructure managers, this development led to a situation where stakeholders (such as the government and local authorities, the train operators and the public) started to impose more severe requirements with respect to performance and costs, forcing the infrastructure managers to perform new and transparent trade-offs to be able to make the right decisions, explains the International Union of Railways. This alternative way of managing infrastructure is called asset management.
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 realize the best “value for money”. These optimisations 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.
“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”, believes the Association of European Rail Infrastructure Managers (EIM).
According to UIC’s opinions on asset management, 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).
An efficient railway infrastructure should be capable of meeting the goals of market liberalisation, technological development, as well as environment issues.
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.
Asset management 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.
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