 Most highway agencies manage road networks with thousands of kilometers of roads. They are involved in planning, design, construction, and maintenance. Unfortunately for many organizations, road rehabilitation and maintenance costs exceed available funds. In fact, most highway programs remain underfunded until the road network deteriorates so much that basic maintenance is impractical. At that point, major rehabilitation is needed at a very high cost, much higher than the cost of an annual maintenance program. Effective annual maintenance programs are a challenge. Managers face the sheer size of a road network, the number of features it includes, plus aging structures with varying physical conditions. They must cope with changing traffic conditions and various environmental conditions, not to mention limited funds. Intuitive approaches are no longer adequate, but systematic approaches based on sound management and engineering principles are now available. They are called decision support systems because they provide complete information and analytical tools to help managers make decisions. This program will cover three of these systems, pavement management systems known as PMS, bridge management systems, BMS, and maintenance management systems, MMS. The systems are interrelated. Once PMS and BMS have built structures, MMS helps keep them sound. Pavement and bridge management systems help with cost-effective rehabilitation and or improvements and best use of available funds. Maintenance management systems help in much the same way with performance-based annual programs and budgets for maintenance work. However, an MMS also provides additional tools like performance standards, assessment of labor, equipment and material needs, and work scheduling and control functions. Managers should coordinate various system programs to avoid maintenance on roads or bridges about to be improved. Once improvement is underway, coordination is still important for traffic maintenance. A word of caution. Many highway management systems require computers, particularly the PMS and the BMS, that have optimization algorithms for finding cost-effective solutions. There are effective manual MMS systems, but the volume of data in most highway agencies requires computer systems. Still, the biggest or newest computer or software may not be necessary. Managers must focus on obtaining information needed for good decision-making and on actually making the proper decisions. An effective management system must provide good, timely information. But it must also provide procedures that aid in meeting stated objectives. And its organization must define roles and responsibilities, so there is no misunderstanding about who should carry out each procedural step and how they should apply the information for sound decision-making. Now let's look at these systems, the PMS, the BMS and the MMS. A pavement management system, as its name implies, is a system that provides, analyzes and summarizes pavement information for use in selecting and implementing cost-effective pavement construction, rehabilitation and maintenance programs. A pavement management system has three elements. It has a database containing a road inventory, pavement condition, construction, maintenance and rehabilitation history, traffic data and cost data. It uses an analysis method to generate products useful for decision-making. These include pavement condition analysis, a priority assessment model and a network optimization model. Finally, a pavement management system has a feedback module. It uses ongoing field observations to improve analysis. It compares actual performance and costs with previous estimates. Then it revises models or parameters, making future estimates more accurate. A good pavement management system will provide such things as information on accidents, traffic, construction, maintenance and rehabilitation histories, current condition based on systematic procedures. The network maintenance budget for specific levels of performance for specified periods of time, such as 5 or 20 years, communication between groups within the highway agency, such as planning, design, construction and maintenance and communication outside the agency with the legislature, the news media and public interest groups. A typical bridge management system assists managers in the most efficient use of budgets and programs for maintenance and improvement of their agency's structural inventory. A typical bridge management system also has three elements. First, a database of structural inventory data and an ongoing program for the continuous collection and maintenance of that data. It should also have a program for collection of inspection data, costs and supplemental data needed for operation of the system. Second, mathematical models engineers use to analyze maintenance and improvement programs. The models predict deterioration, identify the best improvements for safety and serviceability and estimate costs, including the least expensive strategies. Using techniques like life cycle cost analysis, engineers estimate user cost savings, perform periodic and network level optimization and use feedback to update prediction and cost models. The third element is a management information module. It provides a wide variety of reports. A good bridge management system will provide engineers such information as constantly updated inventory, condition and cost data, predictions on deterioration of structural elements and future functional needs, alternative actions, costs of maintenance and improvement, optimal policies, short term and long term budget forecasts and programs and schedules. A maintenance management system helps preserve the investment in the existing highway facility and reduces user costs. It provides continuing, adequate levels of safety and convenience to the road user and directs the use of maintenance resources effectively and economically. A maintenance management system has the following elements. An inventory of all features including the length of each surface type, each linear feature, the number of bridges, culverts, signals and signs, plus the size of areas within the right of way such as mowing area and landscaped area. The MMS provides length and location of each inventory feature. The global positioning system known as GPS and video equipment can make this job easier and more accurate. The MMS provides standards defining how workers should do each maintenance activity. They define optimal crew size, equipment and materials needed, procedures, productivity level and service levels. The system provides resource availability and unit costs. This information should include labor, equipment and materials. It provides a work program and budget showing future work, the resources required, its cost and a general schedule for accomplishing the work. It generates work reports on resource utilization including labor hours, equipment usage and materials used. Its reports can replace a separate financial system. It also provides management reports that summarize accomplishments, progress against the work program and compares expenditures with the budget. And it interacts with other systems like payroll information, financial information, equipment usage and materials usage. A good maintenance management system will provide engineers with such information as a detailed inventory of features needing maintenance as well as their condition, uniform and achievable standards of performance for each maintenance activity and a list of agency resources including quantity, availability and unit cost. With before and after documentation, managers can clearly see the benefits of an MMS. There are direct and indirect benefits. Direct include crew productivity, increased service levels and organizational effectiveness. These improvements can save as much as 15% of an annual maintenance budget. Indirect benefits include better employee morale and improved cooperation and communication. Taxpayers benefit too and MMS reduces expenditures without reducing levels of service. It can even raise the level of service at no cost. Pavement management, bridge management and maintenance management systems are a lot alike. However, the maintenance management system is designed to help engineers manage an internal or contract workforce. Pavement and bridge management systems are not designed to help with labor resource management because much of that work is contracted out. How and when might managers and engineers use these three systems? Let's look at the operation of a typical highway organization. The organization must deal with planning, design, construction and maintenance. Management systems help in each of these tasks. Managers devise three kinds of plans, long range or system plans, short range or project plans and programming. For system plans, managers study transportation needs over a 10 to 20 year time period. They first assess current road conditions, then they forecast future conditions. By comparing the present with the future, they determine what improvements to make and when to make them. Next, they figure the cost of the improvements, annual preservation costs and administrative costs of operating the highway organization. They also devise a financial plan detailing how the transportation needs will be paid for. Finally, if funds are limited, managers must determine which service levels on some roads to reduce. During system planning, pavement and bridge management systems help with forecasting. They tell how to treat specific road sections and bridges in specific future time periods. For example, one road section may need a 5 centimeter overlay in five years. On the other hand, another road section may need a seal coat next year. These management systems will also help predict the costs of these treatments. Project planning involves evaluating specific improvements for adjacent road sections. For example, a section of road may need an overlay, but safety studies may indicate that the road needs widening as well. Project planning addresses the complete needs of the road section. A PMS and BMS help by providing data on specific needs on adjacent road sections. An MMS is not particularly useful at the project planning stage, except that it can provide the relative cost of maintenance with and without the road improvement. For the programming phase, managers match the greatest road and bridge needs with the anticipated level of funding. The results are annual and multi-year work programs. The PMS and BMS provide accurate cost estimates of capital improvements. The MMS provides data on maintenance. Management systems help in design as well. PMS and BMS design details help make sure each improvement is the best possible, the most cost-effective pavement overlay thickness, or bridge rehabilitation or replacement. There are pavement performance and deterioration curves used to evaluate design methods and determine how well previous design practices are working. During construction, there is little need for input from the highway management systems. Everything the contractor needs should already be in the plans and specifications. However, managers should feed final construction costs back to the PMS and BMS systems. Updated construction history files and average cost tables are essential to more accurate predictions later. The MMS is designed specifically to assist in the planning, execution and control of the annual program. In addition, the PMS and BMS may uncover maintenance needs. For example, they may discover a road segment needs a seal coat, or they may find a bridge pier has accumulated tree limbs and other debris from high water. In this program, we have looked at three systems, the PMS, the BMS and the MMS. A pavement management system is a system that provides, analyzes and summarizes pavement information for use in selecting and implementing cost-effective pavement construction, rehabilitation and maintenance programs. A pavement management system has three elements. It has a database containing a road inventory, pavement condition, construction, maintenance and rehabilitation history, traffic data and cost data. It uses an analysis method to generate products useful for decision-making. These include pavement condition analysis, a priority assessment model and a network optimization model. Finally, a pavement management system has a feedback module. It uses ongoing field observations to improve analysis. It compares actual performance and costs with previous estimates. And a bridge management system assists managers in the use of budgets and programs for the maintenance and improvement of a highway agency's structural inventory. A typical bridge management system also has three elements. First, a database of structural inventory data and an ongoing program for the continuous collection and maintenance of that data. Second, mathematical models engineers use to analyze maintenance and improvement programs. The third element is a management information module. It provides a wide variety of reports. A maintenance management system helps preserve the investment in the existing highway facility. It provides continuing, adequate levels of safety and convenience to the road user and directs the use of maintenance resources effectively and economically. For more information on this or other IRF videotapes, write to the International Road Federation or call the numbers on your screen.