I can’t believe we are in late January already. I hope you are keeping up with the New Year’s resolutions. Studies have shown that only about 65% of the resolutions are being kept in the first month. As I have known better, setting up too many goals is the sure-fire way to failure. It is easier to set just two or three goals, making sure to apply the principles of S.M.A.R.T goal setting. Below are the three goals to make you easier to kick off 2016 on the right foot:

• Schedule pavement condition assessment regularly. Managing pavement assets is a long-term commitment. Because you are committed to providing serviceable roads to the motoring public, you will need to regularly perform pavement condition assessment so that StreetSaver can apply maintenance treatment judiciously. Additionally, the up-to-date data will feed into your investment analysis and provide you more accurate maintenance and rehabilitation (M&R) needs. Using outdated data provides inaccurate maintenance needs, resulting in losing trust from upper management and elected officials. Hence it is recommended that all arterials and collectors are rated every two years, while residential streets and local roads every four or five years. If you need help to hire consultant, we can help you to streamline the RFP process.  

• Update your M&R annually. Another upkeep to your pavement management database is the M&R work that has been completed. Take the time to make sure that the correct treatment name is entered. This will help us to fine tune the performance curves. The best time to enter your M&R data is after the construction season is over, which is usually the winter time. Upon updating the M&R, the performance curves of the treated sections will be adjusted to reflect an improvement in PCI. Generally, overlay and reconstruction will see PCI returns to 100 while pavement preservation treatments will see some PCI increase of various degrees depending on the condition prior to the treatment.

• Educate your elected officials annually. Make it a habit of reporting the state of the system to your city council members, commissioners, or board of supervisors at least annually. Keep them informed and engaged in how you are managing the most expensive asset in your entire agency. For example, why it is more cost effective to apply treatment to good roads versus poor road with potholes. To make your job easier, there is a canned report - Performance Executive Summary (performance dashboard) for your use in StreetSaver. End of year or early of the year is usually the best time for a state of the system update.

Please login to your StreetSaver dashboard now. As we usher in a new year, now is a great time to put your pavement management house in better order.