Louisiana Department of
Transportation and Development
Business Process Improvement Program
Maintenance Level of Service Budget Manual
February 2007
Contents
I. Introduction 1
II. Model Overview 2
III. LOS Budget Model 10
1
I. Introduction
As part of the Work Stream 9: Maintenance Planning and Budgeting implementation plan for the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (LADOTD), a maintenance management approach was developed. This approach is outcome-based which means that a desired level of service is defined, the annual maintenance programs are designed to provide that level of service, and the resulting conditions are assessed to determine if the desired outcomes were achieved. Budgets were developed at the district level for 23 maintenance elements that included pavement, roadside, drainage, and traffic control features. These budgets allow estimating the required labor, equipment and materials required to maintain these assets at levels of services set by the Department.
Results from the district or statewide budgets constitute only a portion of the operations budget. This is mainly due to the fact that not all maintenance activities or assets were included in this approach and overhead and other indirect costs were not accounted for.
This document is organized in the following three sections:
· Overview. Developing a budget using a level-of-service approach required incorporating elements developed in previous tasks (e.g. level of effort factors, condition assessment, etc.) and data from different sources. This section describes these elements, the data used to develop the district-level budgets and the relationship among them. It also describes the methodology and maintenance elements included in developing the budgets.
· Budget Guidelines. Several Excel workbooks were created to compute a maintenance budget including in-house and contracted maintenance work. This section describes these files, its structure, data and assumptions used to develop the budgets. It also provides instruction to updating the budget files.
· Next steps. This section lists the actions that will have to be undertaken on a regular basis to repeat the process. It also describes the features of an annual work program and the steps required to develop it.
All files used in developing the maintenance management approach implementation are included on a CD ROM.
II. Overview
Following industry standards for best practices, a maintenance management approach was implemented to improve the budgeting and planning process. This process allows determining the resources required to maintain assets at a specific level of quality that is referred to as level of service (LOS). Exhibit I-I shows the major elements that were developed to implement the maintenance management approach. A description for each element follows.
Level of Service Measures
A series of workshops were held with experienced maintenance personnel to determine the maintenance elements to be included in the maintenance management approach, the appropriate units of measurement, and to develop measures for each levels of service (A, B, C, D and F). For example, potholes are measured in number of potholes per lane mile and a level of service “A” means no potholes. Results from these workshops were summarized in a word document named “09702r01 LOS Measures.doc”
Current Level of Service
Using the level of service measures identified in the previous task, a Data Collection Manual was written and used to train crews from each district. A data collection form was included for crew to record condition for the maintenance elements out in the field and an electronic form was developed to capture the results at the end of each day in an Excel spreadsheet designed for this purpose. Two training sessions were conducted prior to and shortly after each District began collecting data. For practical purposes, data collected out in the field did not match exactly to the level of service measures. For example, crews collected the number of lanes in the sample and the total number of potholes, but the measure was defined as number of potholes per lane mile. The number of potholes per lane mile was computed at a later time using an Excel spreadsheet (This spreadsheet is described in the next section). Each district was provided with a list of random sites. The data collection methodology and random site generation process are described in the word document named “09702r01 LOS Measures.doc”
Customer Input Approach
Public perception of the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development’s (DOTD) highway maintenance program was initially obtained using two methods. A statistically valid telephone survey was conducted with 401 Louisiana residents in 64 parishes and two focus groups held with residents in Baton Rouge and Natchitoches, LA to validate telephone survey findings. The results from these surveys are documented in a word document named “09702r03 DOTD Customer Input Report 060428.doc”
Public perceptions were captured using eight groups of maintenance elements (e.g., drainage and shoulders), instead of using the thirty-three maintenance elements (e.g. pipes, ditch, shoulder raveling, and high shoulder), to reduce the number of questions to a manageable number and still understand the public’s perception. This means that a group of assets may have included one or more maintenance elements.
Target Level of Service
Using the level of service measures, target levels of service were set using the results from the field condition assessment and customer input approach. These targets were validated at the District level but had not been reviewed by top management at the time this document was written.
Proposed target levels of services were developed using the following assumptions:
· Each level of service was broken down in three sub-levels, e.g. A+, A, and A- (Note that if the A level was defined as “0” rather than a range of values, then A+ and A- would not apply).
· The telephone survey results provided data on perceived and desired LOS for groups of assets. The difference between the desired and perceived LOS (i.e., the “delta” value) was computed for each group.
· It was assumed that the relationship between delta and the actual level of service scale is linear and that one unit of delta corresponds to one step above or below in the modified scale. (e.g., from C- to C, B+ to A-, etc.)
· The corresponding delta was applied to the computed LOS for each asset. For example, LOS for pothole patching is B- and delta is 1.5. Then, the target level of service is B+.
· Based on the results from focus groups, some assets were given higher priority. For example, litter has a current LOS of F and a delta of 1.6. Instead of setting the target LOS to D- a more acceptable target level of service of C- was proposed.
· The same target levels of service are used for interstate and non-interstate highways.
Table I-1 Proposed Target Levels of Service.
Group / Maintenance Element / TargetAsphalt Pavement / Potholes / B+
Rutting / A
Raveling / B
Alligator Cracking / B+
Longitudinal / Transverse Cracking / A
Area Cracking / B-
Sweeping / B
Other (bleeding, humps, sags, etc) / B
Concrete Pavement / Potholes / B
Spalling / B-
Longitudinal / Transverse Cracking / A
Longitudinal Faulting / B
Traverse Faulting / Bumps / B+
Sweeping / A
Shoulders / High Shoulder / A
Edge Rutting / B
Drainage / Pipes and Culverts / C
Drop Inlets and Catch Basins / B
Ditches / B+
Gutters / A
Roadside / Erosion Control / A-
Noxious Weed / C
Mowing – Rural / C
Mowing – Urban / C
Brush Control / B
Tree Removal / C
Litter Control / C-
Rest Areas / C
Traffic Services / Raised Pavement Markers / D
Signals / B
Signs – Regulatory and Warning / C
Signs – Other / C
Striping / C
Level of Effort Factors
Each maintenance level of service has been defined by a measurable or observable condition. To change the current level of service to a different level, the difference between the two measures is calculated and converted to a workload, e.g., tons of asphalt. A series of workshops with district maintenance personnel was conducted to develop these factors. This task required determining the relationship between the current LOS, as measured out in the field, and the target level of service and converting that difference into the amount of work required to achieve the target level. This relationship was calculated by first determining the required increase or decrease of work per unit of inventory, then multiplying that unit amount by the inventory quantity. These factors are included and described in the budget files.
Work Standards
Another series of workshops was conducted with experienced maintenance personnel to revise maintenance activities described in the Maintenance Planning Manual. This Manual was last modified in 1991, with some modifications more recently proposed between 2004 and 2005. These documents were used as a starting point in developing new work standards. Work standards specify the typical crew size, equipment and materials required to accomplish a number of work units per day. One difference between the current manual and the work standards developed during this project, other than the actual values, is the fact that the manual uses ranges of values for crew size, equipment and daily accomplishment, but this project required a single value. Usually, the mid-range value was selected for the budget calculations.
During these workshops, it was determined that additional work activities and work standards were required to better track the work performed by the maintenance crews due to the cost or time required to accomplish each treatment. For example, Activity 412 Pothole Patching was split into two activities, 412-01 and 412-02, for Pothole Patching with Patching Machine and Pothole Patching - Hand Method, respectively. In other cases, the need of new work standards was identified (e.g., guardrail inspection).
Annual Work Quantities
The amount of work required to achieve target levels of service for each maintenance asset was converted into crew-days using the average daily accomplishments defined in the work standards. The number of crew-days required is calculated by dividing the annual work quantity by the average daily accomplishment per crew-day.
Annual Budget
The annual budget was developed by costing out the number of crew days required for each work activity for each District. Two average hourly rates were established, one for maintenance workers and one for foremen. Hourly rates were obtained for vehicles and equipment. Unit prices were obtained for materials. A budget for each activity was calculated by multiplying the planned annual crew-days by the unit rates for labor, equipment and materials and by the quantities per crew-day. The following example illustrates the process for calculating the budget for a maintenance activity:
Labor Budget = [ Σ (Personnel per Crew-day) x (Personnel Cost per Hour) x (8 Hours per Day)]
x (Annual Crew-days)
Equipment Budget = [ Σ (Equipment per Crew-day) x (Equipment Cost per Hour) x (8 Hours per Day)]
x (Annual Crew-days)
Material Budget = [ Σ (Material Quantity per Crew-day) x (Material Unit Cost)] x (Annual Crew-days)
Contract Budget = (Contract Quantity) x (Contract Unit Cost)
Activity Budget = Labor Budget + Equipment Budget + Material Budget + Contract Budget
District Budget = Σ (Activity Budgets)
Statewide Budget = Σ (District Budgets)
It is important to mention that these budgets only include the maintenance elements listed in Table I-2. Other work activities and overhead costs are not included. MOPS tracks approximately 150 work activities and only 63 of them were used in this project.
Table I-2: Asset Groups And Maintenance Elements For Assessing
Level Of Service (LOS)
Asphalt Pavement / 1. Potholes
2. Rutting
3. Raveling
4. Alligator Cracking
5. Linear Cracking
6. Area Cracking
7. Sweeping
8. Other (bleeding, humps, sags, etc) / Yes
Concrete Pavement / 1. Potholes
2. Spalling
3. Linear Cracking
4. Longitudinal Faulting
5. Traverse Faulting / Bumps
6. Sweeping / Yes
Shoulders / 1. High Shoulder
2. Edge Rutting / Yes
Drainage / 1. Pipes and Culverts
2. Drop Inlets and Catch Basins
3. Ditches
4. Gutters / Yes
Roadside / 1. Erosion Control
2. Noxious Weed
3. Mowing (Rural and Urban)
4. Brush Control
5. Tree Removal
6. Litter Control / Yes
Traffic Services / 1. Raised Pavement Markers
2. Signals (Maintenance)
3. Signals (Section 45)
3. Signs – Regulatory and Warning
4. Signs – Other
5. Striping / Yes
Rest Areas / 1. Condition Rating / Yes
Bridge and Structural Maintenance / 1. Bridge Condition
2. Painting (Steel Bridges)
3. Bridge Approaches
4. Drift
5. Guardrails
6. Impact Attenuators
7. Sweeping / No
Movable Bridges / 1. Condition Rating / No
Tunnel and Pumping Station / 1. Tunnel
2. Pumping Station
3. Backup Power / No
Ferries / 1. Operation Rating
2. Approaches / No
Some of the maintenance elements in Table I-2 were not included in the budget since no data was ready available. In order to include a maintenance element in the maintenance management approach, it is required to know the amount of work performed in the previous year, the inventory and current LOS condition.
In the case of bridge condition, it was originally proposed to use the National Bridge Inspection Program sufficiency rating as the LOS measure. A sufficiency rating is a 100-point scale that describes the structural integrity and functional adequacy of the bridge, but does not necessarily reflect the maintenance work performed on a bridge. Alternative measures were proposed, but the data for each bridge was not available in a database, making it almost impossible to determine the maintenance condition of the thousands of bridges in the state. In other cases, like movable bridge condition, a work activity to specifically track maintenance work did not exist.