As a consequence of 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 (UIC). This alternative way of managing infrastructure is called asset management.
Contents
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 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. Under the UIC opinions, in asset management, managers should correctly manage information, more precisely, to have direct access to all relevant data, such as performing risk analyses and evaluating results which will be a standard practice as part of the decision-making process. Also,managers should take long-term effects into account when making short-term decisions (Life Cycle Cost Analyses).
Indispensable tool
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”, believes the Association of European Rail Infrastructure Managers (EIM). 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 lack of knowledge of Asset Management within the organisations may be one of the main obstacles to implement the model. The UIC Asset Management Working Group (AMWG) was established two years ago under the umbrella of the Infrastructure Forum, now known as Rail System Forum, to develop and communicate methods and tools to support the consistent application of asset management principles for the benefit of railway infrastructure managers. The first phase of this development aimed to establish a common understanding of asset management, together with practical steps to help railway infrastructure managers develop their own approach and methods. Taking as its starting point group introduced the rail sector’s first-ever set of guidelines entitled “Guidelines for the application of asset management in railway infrastructure companies”. A second phase of work is currently underway in which UIC is using the asset management framework as a reference for assessing asset management processes and systems and for comparing actual performance and costs of the railway infrastructures that UIC manages. The Association is already seeing some good practices emerging from this phase of work and announces the publishing of the initial results early in 2011.
by Elena Ilie
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