Book excerpt: "Roadway infrastructure within the United States includes features such as roads, bridges, signs, pavement markings, traffic signals, support commerce and mobility, and is, in essence, a shared financial public resource worthy of being managed at the highest level of efficiency. State departments of transportation (DOTs), local transportation authorities, and federal agencies responsible for the fiscal management of the transportation system have shown a growing interest in advancing the state of practice in managing these critical assets. In addition, the recent congressional passage of Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21 Act) has established an outcome-driven, performance-tracking approach that will hold states and metropolitan planning organizations accountable for improving the conditions and performance of their transportation assets. It will therefore increase agency attentiveness to these vital issues. Transportation Asset Management (AM) is a strategic and systematic process of operating, maintaining, upgrading, and expanding physical assets effectively throughout their life cycle. It focuses on business and engineering practices for resource allocation and utilization, with the objective of better decision making based on quality information and well-defined objectives. Advancing AM capabilities and integrating these capabilities across an organization's business units requires self-assessment, alignment, goal setting, and support. This synthesis of transportation asset management practice among state highway agencies will be a timely resource for agencies to identify their current state of practice and determine where they will direct their AM efforts. This synthesis is based on two separate surveys, with additional input from practitioners. The initial survey requested that participants conduct a self-assessment to characterize their agency's AM practices....The self-assessment results reflect current and future (5-year) business practices and the agencies' institutional, organizational, financial, and IT environments. This survey yielded 18 DOT participant responses (see Appendix D). Based on the results of the initial survey, and input from the Topic Panel, a second survey was designed to capture the state of practice and forward looking expectations (for the next 3 to 5 years) among state DOTs. Forty-three agencies participated in this second survey."--p. 1.