Introducing LCC in maintenance decision making on network level

Every four years the Dutch government and the executive agency Rijkswaterstaat (RWS) negotiate a Service Level Agreement (SLA) for the performance of the national roads, waterways and water systems. In this SLA, the required performance of the infrastructure, the risks and the maintenance budget for the coming four years is agreed upon. The common opinion is, that the relatively short term and lagging character of the performance indicators in the SLA, may lead to sub-optimal decisions in the long run which may lead to a waste of public money. In order to improve transparency and increase the understanding of the long term consequences of SLA decisions, an effective and practical indicator that takes long-term effects into account is called for. Experience with such practical indicators for maintenance budget decisions is not available in the infrastructure sector, nor in similar sectors. This paper deals with the derivation of the indicators based on existing maintenance planning data. The resulting indicators improve transparency and provide insight in the long term cost development of the required maintenance budget. Further research and development is required for using the indicators for policy and decision making