Asset Management Systems for Retaining Walls: Fid-Bau Portal

Asset Management Systems for Retaining Walls

Anderson, Scott A. / Alzamora, Daniel / DeMarco, Matthew J.

Retaining walls are structures that are an important part of many development and re-development projects. Individually, they may not be large or expensive, but often owners can be responsible for large numbers of walls and in total the walls constitute an important asset, and one that can be difficult to manage. Difficulties stem from the dispersed nature of the asset, the different types of retaining wall construction, and the different purposes the walls serve. Asset management systems are costly to implement because of upfront data collection and management needs. In fact, some owners have judged the cost to be greater than the expected benefits, and have taken no action. The National Park Service and the Federal Highway Administration have developed an asset management system for retaining walls that could be a cost effective model for others to adopt. The system is both versatile and simple, and in the past two years more than 3,200 walls have been inventoried and assessed. This paper discusses the considerable effort made to keep the program simple enough to be attainable and yet valuable for its primary purposes.