Road asset data is an essential component of a road manager’s tool kit. However, this data ‘language’ varies across road and government agencies – and often within organisations – making comparisons difficult and stymying innovation. That’s where the Austroads Road Data Harmonisation Project comes in.

Creating a common data language for road assets would pave the way for the consistent use of new technologies, enable more efficient investments and collaboration and ultimately save local governments money.

According to Dr Richard Yeo, Austroads Program Manager Assets, the development and application of road asset data standards in Australia and New Zealand is largely reactionary, responding to local requirements and the adoption of new systems or equipment.

This has led to differences in data definitions and terminology, making collaboration and comparison difficult.

“In the absence of harmonised road asset data, each road manager collects similar, yet slightly different, information,” Yeo says.

“The minor but consequential differences in the data limit the comparability of asset information between road networks, and increases the costs of working across different road networks.”

Austroads’ Road Asset Data Harmonisation Project is ambitious. The project team’s goal is to help every level of road agency and government across Australia and New Zealand gradually adopt standardised ways of recording road asset information. It’s a particularly challenging objective, considering that by definition, the project requires cooperation from organisations of varying sizes and with wildly varying resources.

“The difference between operations can be the smallest local government right up to the biggest road agency, such as RMS,” Yeo says.

Despite the challenges, Yeo says there is a clear need for comparable data across agencies and governments.

“Local governments incur high transactional costs caused by incomplete, different and numerous data sets, and the need to convert them into useable formats. Innovation, investment and greater economic efficiency across the road network is stifled,” he explains.

Benchmarking and national reforms

The project’s initial business case found there were significant benefits in creating a data environment that allowed local governments to compare and benchmark their road asset data.

“Benchmarking is a term that really describes the ability for road managers to collaborate with each other and compare best practice approaches for asset management and investment,” Yeo says.

“That’s the area where the bulk of the benefits in the initial business case were thought to rest – it would really open up collaboration and networking and the ability to adopt best practice approaches for local government.”

With a common data language in place, local governments would be able to benchmark themselves against road agencies, potentially enabling a higher level of sophistication.

The data standard also has a role to play in the planning of nationally-significant infrastructure projects and reforms.

For Infrastructure Australia, standardised road data would support the ability to make better informed decisions about which mega- projects to sink ‘the big bucks’ into, Yeo says.

“If the data is comparable, then this would assist Infrastructure Australia in more reliably making the best decisions and achieving more economic efficiency,” he says.

The standard could also inform the way Australia funds its roads. Infrastructure Australia has recommended moving to a user-pays model, and Yeo says the improved data would help achieve better outcomes from this reform.

New technologies

The data standard would also enable local governments and road agencies to harness technologies such as digital engineering and drone assisted infrastructure assessment.

“I’m confident the data standard will enable innovative and cost-effective solutions for local government, such as these ‘futuristic’ sorts of tools,” Yeo explains.

“The data standard is a component of that, whether that is something like standardised approaches to using drones for data capture or automated laser crack measurement – common approaches mean that technology can be something that people can use to really efficiently and cost effectively get a feel for the state of their assets. Then on the more futuristic side there’s things like BIM and mutual sharing; the benefits are thought to be very large in terms of efficiencies going forward.”

Yeo describes the data standard as “part of the puzzle”, in terms of making these technologies more affordable for local government.

“There is currently no ability to describe a common language around asset data in that framework. The data standard would allow road agencies and local government to be able to communicate clearly with contractors – then there is the ability to drive down costs because there’s a shared language,” he says.

Finally, Yeo believes the data standard could be used as a platform for groups of local governments to collaborate, potentially easing the reporting burden.

“Local governments often have to report to numerous state and federal bodies about similar data. So there’s an opportunity there, in terms of bringing that into standardised formats and data collaborating that will make that reporting process easier,” he says.

What's next?

Workshops were held in February and March 2016 across Australia and New Zealand to allow practitioners to contribute to the development of the Data Standard for Road Management and Investment. Austroads developed and published version one of the standard in November 2016. This is already being updated and made ready to support staged harmonisation processes in Australia and New Zealand. Version 2 of the Data Standard was subject to consultation in early 2017 and is likely to be published in May this year. It will be subject to a concerted implementation plan supported by Austroads members.

Yeo says a key part of the implementation plan will be staged adoption, focusing on the most important data areas first and avoiding those that may be costly for some organisations to adopt.

“There’s no desire to create a mandate, but to develop a way where we can collaborate and both motivate and support people in adoption of the standards,” he says.

The initial data set is being prepared in consultation with stakeholders and an early draft has been released for consultation, focusing on maximising the benefits derived from road data harmonisation while minimising the impact on affected road management organisations.

In parallel, Austroads is looking at a range of options to support the adoption and use of the data standard and promoting the use of the standard in asset management system and analytical software.

For more information about the project, go to: austroads.com.au/road-operations/asset-management/road-data-harmonisation-project

This article was originally published in the April edition of inspire magazine. View the magazine here.