What is True Optimisation?

Allocating funds on a limited budget will always prove to be a challenge for asset managers. An optimisation strategy will be crucial in helping you make better funding decisions and getting a higher return on infrastructure investment.

What is optimisation?

Optimisation is a way to identify the best solution to a complicated problem. In transportation asset management, a central problem is selecting the right type of projects to fund to best meet the organisation’s goals while staying within budget.

When it comes to choosing the best strategy, it is worth comparing the benefits of true optimisation to other approaches.

The true optimisation approach:

-          Provides a holistic view using unlimited data

-          Prioritises network performance

-          Reaches many short- and long-term goals

-          Returns the most value from available funds

On the flip side, other approaches come with many disadvantages as it only focuses only carrying out ‘quick fixes’ on assets and projects to meet a few short-term goals. This does not make good use of the budget and does not maximise value overall. Agencies often water down the problem by cutting the number of variables to be considered or by using relatively small data sets. However, modern complexity mean that asset managers need to take an increasing volume of information into account and to be more effective at utilising this information to make better informed investment decisions. Therefore, we recommend the true optimisation approach for an all-encompassing analysis of the organisation projects that are worth pursuing.

In conclusion, optimisation helps agencies get the best possible results while meeting multiple constraints. For detailed examples, industry-relevant applications as well as case studies, please visit AgileAssets to peruse their e-book ‘How in Transportation Asset Management Optimization Works’: https://www.agileassets.com/e-books/how-optimization-works-in-transportation-asset-management/