About the Project

In 2021, the North Dakota DOT (NDDOT) contracted with Applied Pavement Technology, Inc. (APTech) to update and implement its federally compliant risk-based transportation asset management plan. The plan documents NDDOT’s practices and planned investments for managing the agency’s over 17,400 lane-miles of pavement and more than 2,300 highway bridges from 2022 through 2031. NDDOT was looking for a firm that could help them streamline their Transportation Asset Management Plan (TAMP) and better connect it to its family of plans while identifying opportunities to improve asset management and capital programming processes. NDDOT is striving to develop an engaging and highly graphical TAMP that complies with Federal requirements in forty pages or less.

“NDDOT challenged us with creating a visually appealing TAMP that is less than half as long as most TAMPs. This caused us to rethink how the TAMP is organized and how required information is presented.”

— Brad Allen, P.E. • Project Manager

APTech is leading all aspects of the TAMP development, including the documentation of existing asset management processes, financial planning, life cycle planning, and risk analysis. In developing the TAMP, APTech conducted an innovative gap analysis based on future scenarios established in the NDDOT long range statewide transportation plan, Transportation Connection. These scenarios, titled Urban Centers, Rural Renaissance, Smart and Connected, and Ghost Towns, identified possible economic futures for the state. APTech developed a gap analysis that forecasted pavement and bridge conditions under each of these scenarios and compared those to forecasts based on each alternate scenario. The results are presented in the TAMP with a 2-page infographic.

As part of the TAMP update, APTech is supporting NDDOT with internal and external stakeholder outreach to map current program development processes. This involves engagement with a broad group of internal and external stakeholders including local Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Division partners early in the TAMP development process. APTech facilitated a series of workshops and interviews with stakeholders to develop detailed process maps and identified risks and inefficiencies in current processes. Working with NDDOT Asset Management staff, APTech developed recommendations for improvements to existing business processes that led to more effective long-term investment decisions for the NDDOT. Following certification of the TAMP, APTech will work with NDDOT to implement selected improvements.

The project demonstrates the team’s ability to develop implementation guidance to support the successful transition to a risk-based, strategic approach to managing transportation assets that leverages available tools and technology. The North Dakota TAMP update does not involve services related to transportation performance management (TPM).