The current duress includes tight state and local budgets, deferral of needed maintenance funding, and political pressures to cut public spending.
[1] Today, shrinking federal appropriations, progressively aging capital stock, and parochial statuses and interest groups have inhibited flexible procurement strategies.
And with the rise of design firms, professional societies, licensures, construction and industry associations, and related specialties the management of the infrastructure system has dramatically altered.
[5][page needed] After World War II, with the policies of the Roosevelt Administration, economic boom of the 1950s, and rise in Federalism, public projects became financed through direct government funding.
[7][8] This deficit could be the result a shift in financing policy at the end of 1970s, which made the local governments responsible to fund the municipal assets.
Typically, a long-life-cycle asset requires multiple intervention points including a combination of repair and maintenance activities and even overall rehabilitation.
Though in a testing phase among three universities in South Korea, United States, and Japan, the use of wireless technology to may lend itself to future, cost-efficient asset management.
Politically, many legal and governmental initiatives have emphasized proactive asset management given the current state of an aging infrastructure and fiscal challenges.
34 that required state and local entities to report in their accounting all infrastructure assets not only the privately financed ones such as water supply and utilities paid by user fees.
This helps to determine an agency's overall infrastructure asset inventory, timely assessment of physical condition, and annual projection of financial requirements.
[1] Despite the current challenges of the time's financial constraints, one advantage is the growing availability of methodology and technology to employ asset management.
The Handbook offers a flexible step-by-step diagnostic methodology with advice, exercises and examples easily accessible to practitioners and decision-makers in local and central governments.
Focused on anticipating risks and facing the challenges of the future, the guide applies to traditional infrastructure (roads, water distribution networks, sanitation, buildings for essential services, etc.
Some chapters also offer a situational assessment of climate risks and resource mobilization for a more effective response to public health emergencies.
The UN also created a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Infrastructure Asset Management for Sustainable Development, which provides in-depth instruction and complements knowledge acquired from the Handbook.
GIS-centric public asset management standardizes data and allows interoperability, providing users the capability to reuse, coordinate, and share information in an efficient and effective manner.
This program also ensures the highest possible accreditation for an emerging profession, since individuals in this field still outperform institutions in terms of quality of content.