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Video: Asset Support Contracts - bringing “science and rigor” to highways maintenance

Clients and industry are now embracing a professional approach to asset management and operation, Mott MacDonald’s highways director David Tarrant tells Infrastructure Intelligence Editor Antony Oliver.

“There has been a huge change over the last couple of year in that we are seeing clients thinking much more about the whole life of an asset rather than just what it costs to build it,” he said in an interview recorded at the recent ACE annual conference.

“They are now very much thinking hard about what it costs to run it and [that thinking] is also now coming into the industry so that we now have engineers thinking about operation while they are designing.”

Reflecting on the positive changes going on at the Highways Agency, Tarrant sid that new thinking and new procurement tools were moving asset maintenance from the poor end of the profession to becoming a key profession in its own right.

“Asset Support Contracts mean that we are moving towards a more risk based approach and analyse what is actually needed for the long term benefit of the asset,” he said. “Bringing more science and rigor into the whole approach. We are now starting to see a new profession emerge around the whole lfe asset management.”

If you would like to contact Antony Oliver about this, or any other story, please email antony.oliver@infrastructure-intelligence.com.