Northern Grampians Shire Council: A Model for Road Asset Management

Mar 31, 2014 by     Comments Off    Posted under: Asset Management

Northern Grampians Sire Council (NGSC) is one of the small council in Victoria and the council owns approximately $271 Million value of Assets including $207 Million value of infrastructure assets. Asset Management is one of the most challenging parts of business for a small council such as NGSC. NGSC’s infrastructure assets are scattered around an area of 6000 square meter and the council in a position to deliver its services in optimistic way to the satisfaction of their local community’s expectations. It is also obvious that the local community expects the best service from the council but they really don’t have a better understanding or knowledge about the consecutive effect of their expectations that means how their expected level of services for the road network impacts on council’s financial status at present and in the future years and how the community is going to commit themselves for the expected level of services.

NGSC is developed a simplified and more advanced model for the council’s road network by using the excel spread sheet with the existing data. The model helps to council’s executive officers, staffs, and the local community to get a better understanding about the road asset and service management process as well as the model is able to demonstrate renewal gap and manpower gaps in simple format.

1. Use of Best Practice Engineering Principles and Technologies

Population of 11,942 lives in area of 5,918 square kilometres in the region of Northern Grampians Shire Council.  The NGSC manages 3,374 kilometre length of road network in which the roads can be physically categorised as Sealed, Unsealed and Formed roads as well as the roads further regionally categorised as Rural and Urban roads. The NGSC has a 4-tier hierarchy system to classify the roads according to their functionality and they can be called as Link Road, Collector Road, Residential Access and Property Access. In addition to that there are some tracks in the NGSC regions.

There are nearly 5,000 segments in the NGSC’s road networks and each segment is assessed individually and modelled as per their road hierarchy, condition rating and physical features. For an example, if Rural Link Road is considered, the attributes of the road, such as length, formation area, pavement area and seal area, are calculated by the model more accurately for the each specific segment. Furthermore, a designated Level of Service (LOS) is assigned to the segment as per the segment’s hierarchy and modelled with physical features (Seal or Unseal) and life of the segment. In addition to that maintenance expenses for each hierarchy of the roads are included into the model.

All the road segments contain a condition rating of zero to ten and each segment is assessed and modelled according to the physical condition, condition rating and LOS and then calculates more accurate cost estimation for next 10 year in order to deliver the expected LOS by the council by using the current unit rate of expenses. The model is particularly developed for the NGSC’s road network; it is more realistic and accurate for the management of NGSC’s road networks and. The model contains simple keys to alter the LOS for each hierarchy of the road networks and predict future demand for renewal expenses and describe in graphical method.

Maintenance expenses for the road network can be modeled and more realistic maintenance expenditures have been predicted from the past experience for the next ten years and modeled.

Next part of this model is analysing the most possible expenses for the renewal and maintenance works by assessing the council’s income. The council has been receiving their major income from couple of sources; the first source is council’s rates and the second source is from external government grants. The model provides the renewal gap by comparing the strategic renewal demand and the most possible income options.  The gap can be reduced by adjusting LOS to suit to the council’s income. By using the simple keys on the model, there are lot of combination of the adjustment that can be done to achieve the most appropriate way to provide the LOS according to the council’s income. The model allows altering the rate increment, predicted future grants, possible to consider any special charge options and reduce the capital renewal and upgrading expenses in order to reduce the renewal gap.  In addition the all above predictions, the model can predict the additional manpower requirement that obviously needed to deliver the modelled LOS. So the model is more advanced to analysis the service management with the existing manpower.

As conclusion, the model has been developed in three excel spread sheets which are named as Data Analysis, Resource Level and Renewal – Maintenance Model. The three sheets are interlinked and by altering the LOS, the rate, the capital expenses, the condition rating, the life of the segment etc. the model can clearly calculate the renewal gap and shows in a graphical format about the renewal demand versus possible funding. The model uses the rate as an input data and which can be decided in advance for the next ten years in order to deliver the LOS as per the community wish. Finally, any manpower requirement for the service delivery is also calculated by the model by using the existing manpower information.

2. Degree of Originality and Ingenuity of Solution

Northern Grampians Shire Council owns 3,374 kilometre length of road and the roads are classified by nearly 5,000 segments. Each segment has an individual features and it contribute major role to provide the LOS for each roads. The model assesses the each segment as per their hierarchy, physical feature, LOS, Life of the segment and maintenance work and calculate the renewal gap. So the model is 100% original and genuine to NGSC’s roads and it was successfully developed by Infrastructure Engineers of NGSC. The local community can get a best transport service by analysing the each segment separately and the community asset will be maintained to provide a better LOS for a longer run.

Furthermore, each council has different type of residential and commercial environment; as per their topography, natural resources, populations etc. each council’s incomes and their LOS for their road network are different. Grant allocation from external agencies is also different from council to council as per their population and community needs. The Model which was developed by the NGSC fairly assess and calculate the most realistic incomes to the infrastructure development from council’s rates and grants, so the model’s output is always genuine and real to the ongoing situation of the NGSC.

Finally, the model can calculate the additional manpower requirement itself to deliver the capital and maintenance works. The model is developed with the existing manpower information of the NGSC and so the model is suitable to control any additional expenses and save the community assets (rate money).

3. Program and Project Management

The model is more useful to have a consultation or meeting with the local community. Normally it is a longer process to provide a better understanding to the local community about the LOS versus financial requirements for the NGSC’s road networks. It usually takes three to four consultations meeting with the community to finalise the LOS for the NGSC’s road networks. By using the model, the LOS can be finalised in the first community meeting because the model can calculate all necessary information and provide a better understanding about the LOS versus financial requirements in a graph format to make the necessary decision on the spot simply. So it saves a lot of staffs time, community money and asset and increase the productivity of the NGSC’s works.

Usually, Councillors do have limited knowledge about Asset Management and it is a bit hard process to brief them about the Asset Management principles and how they are going to make impact on the status of NGSC’s financial situation. The model is very useful to provide the necessary explanation to the councillors and get the approval from the councillors for the council’s capital and maintenance works. Furthermore, they are the one have close relationship with the local community and by having the better understanding about the asset management principles, they could provide  necessary explanations to the community about the LOS that deliver by the NGSC and the financial benefits. As a result of that Council might be received less numbers of complaints and the community will get trust on Council’s every actions, so it could be very easy to manage projects.

4. Benefit of the Project or Service to the Community

  • Community get a better understanding about the management progress of the NGSC’s road networks.
  • They could easily understand the consecutive effects by providing an inappropriate LOS to the NGSC’s road networks.
  • It will be very convenience to handle the community consultation meetings to analyse the LOS for the road networks and get the most appreciated results from the local community.
  • The Road Asset will be retained in appropriate and workable conditions according to the community expectation (LOS).
  • The community’s rate money and other grants will be utilised in optimistic way to provide appropriate LOS according to the community expectation.
  • The NGSC’s productivity will be improved due to the immediate results by the model and staffs time savings while having any community consultations or meetings.
  • The model is a well-intentioned tool to demonstrate the Asset management principles to the Councillors and other executive staff members.
  • By providing better explanations to the community and councilors, the council receive less numbers of complaints.
  • The local community will have better understanding and trust on the council actions.

5. Presentation of the Awards Submission

  • Northern Grampians Shire Council manages 3,374 kilometre length of road network which contains sealed, unsealed and formed roads.
  • The council developed a simplified and more advanced model for their road networks to demonstrate to their stakeholders about strategic funding demand versus current funding.
  • The model is very handy and convenient to analyse and fix the LOS of each class of council’s roads while having a discussion with local community, councilors, executive staff members and other interested parties.
  • In addition to that the model can predict any additional manpower requirement to provide the designated LOS.

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About the Awards

Welcome to our website profiling the top submissions in this year's IPWEA Victoria Awards for Excellence. The award categories are: Capital Project Awards, Innovative Practice/Service Delivery Award, and Asset Management Award.