Increasing asset life through a state of good repair

How data, strategic planning and coordination can drive lasting transit infrastructure performance

By Chad Allen, Asset Management Practice Consultant | HNTB

To meet growing mobility demands and enhance the customer experience, transit agencies are focused on keeping their networks and fleets performing at their highest potential. Beyond keeping pace with maintenance demands, maintaining a state of good repair represents an opportunity to support system-wide performance, increasing safety, strengthening reliability and building operational resilience.

When agencies view state of good repair as part of a holistic, data-informed asset management program, they can extend asset service life, reduce costs, increase efficiency, minimize service disruptions and strengthen public trust. Emerging digital tools and integrated organizational models make this possible by connecting data systems, enabling digital twin models and improving visibility into asset condition while enhancing communication and coordination across the agency.

Building value through a state of good repair

A holistic approach to state of good repair can provide important advantages to transit agencies. Planned maintenance can be coordinated and communicated in advance, reinforcing operational reliability and building public trust. Over time, this approach transforms maintenance from a necessary expense into a source of value, enabling agencies to increase the expected asset service life for critical assets and stretching out the need for capital investments. Agencies can then reinvest these lifecycle cost savings into safety and service enhancements that strengthen overall system performance.

Strategies for optimizing performance

The following strategies illustrate how agencies can identify opportunities to strengthen performance, reliability and resilience through a state of good repair.

Turn data into a decision-making engine: Modern asset management platforms can give agencies visibility into the condition, age and performance of every component across their network. Through this analysis, patterns may be revealed that highlight condition-based needs and areas of risk to help determine, and schedule, the right treatment at the right time. Condition-based data creates a shared language among engineers, planners and finance teams, allowing decisions to be based on lifecycle value rather than short-term cost. These processes transform state of good repair into a decision-support system that drives smarter, more predictable investments.

Use a maturity model to measure and sustain progress: A maturity model is a structured framework that helps agencies evaluate their current state of capabilities, define their future state capabilities and performance and outline a roadmap that defines the steps needed to reach their goals and objectives. By evaluating maturity across asset types and organizational functions, agencies can focus investments where they will deliver the greatest value. This approach fosters steady and sustainable growth while fostering clear and transparent communication throughout the organization. Ultimately, the maturity model serves as a roadmap for translating aspiration into measurable performance and building a more resilient, high-performing transit system.

Empower people and align organizational priorities: Achieving a state of good repair is optimized through a unified organization where maintenance, operations, planning, IT and capital delivery teams work toward shared priorities and consistent data. Clear governance and open communication ensure that decisions about maintenance and capital investments support a common vision for long-term performance and system modernization and expansion.

Plan and communicate improvements to build trust: Planned maintenance allows agencies to manage disruptions on their own terms. By scheduling and coordinating work in advance, agencies can bundle multiple activities, such as track replacement, traction power upgrades or communication network repairs, within the same system closure window. This approach saves time, increases efficiency, and reduces redundancy. Just as importantly, communicating about these planned events builds transparency and trust with riders. When the public understands that a short-term inconvenience leads to long-term reliability, agencies strengthen credibility and reinforce the value of their investments.

Investing today to strengthen tomorrow’s system

Today’s decisions impact tomorrow’s performance, and a programmatic approach toward a state of good repair is a long-term investment in system safety, reliability, efficiency and public confidence. By combining data, planning and coordination, agencies can turn asset management into a source of value, helping deliver safer, more dependable service today while positioning their systems for the future.