Present and future asset management─Progress, Outcomes and Problems in 10 years─

Ten years have passed since the asset management system had been widely introduced in Japan. The word “Asset Management” first appeared in the 2003 report of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. Then, Challenge for Asset Management was published by JSCE, Japan Society of Civil Engineering, in 2005. The asset management system became well known, and many studies have been conducted in order to construct theories and seek practical methods of asset management system. Meanwhile, deterioration-prediction-method and Information and Communications Technology made marked progress.

Recently, all prefectures and ordinance-designated cities have their own bridge management plans and make them public. However, the repair work for bridges based upon those plans has not been carried out sufficiently. It is extremely important to carry out inspection, evaluation, repair, and retrofit properly as a cycle of maintenance work. Nevertheless, the maintenance cycle does not work well because of the lack of human resources, budget, and knowledge. As a result, there are a lot of unrepaired bridges remaining. On the other hand, asset management system emphasized an importance of preventive maintenance, and it improved bridge maintenance policies in some local governments. In a word, asset management system has both achievements and problems so far.

The journal of JSCE has previously dealt with asset management system several times, but those articles only referred to theories, frameworks, and technologies for asset management system. This special issue focuses more on the practical side of asset management and aims to reveal achievements in these 10 years and problems about current asset management system.