National Highways and TRL Software have completed the rollout of P-AMS, a cloud-based pavement asset management system for England’s strategic road network.
Early last year, National Highways commissioned TRL Software, part of Transport Research Laboratories, to provide it with a new pavement asset management system. He result is P-AMS, based on TRL Software’s off-the-shelf asset management system called iROADS, which is designed for various infrastructure assets.
P-AMS has now replaced National Highway’s 20-year-old HAPMS - Highways England’s Pavement Management System – platform. P-AMS also forms part of the agency’s Asset Management Transformation and will help support delivery of its Digital Roads Strategy, creating more efficient ways of working through improved digital integration.
The new system was developed to align with its emerging Asset Management System Strategy (AMSS). AMSS compliance will ensure the new system supports cross-asset data access and analysis, and the company’s new data model.
National Highways is responsible for England’s 7,250km strategic road network of motorways and trunk roads – an asset worth around US$107 billion.
“The main benefit of P-AMS iROADS is that it provides quicker and simpler access to insights about the road network, improving day-to-day decision-making and reducing time wasted trying to get hold of data,” said Paul Zanelli, TRL’s strategic ventures director. “This leads to accelerated strategic decisions, allowing for improved operational efficiency, accurate forecasting and quantifiable decisions for National Highways.”
He said the rollout of P-AMS involved TRL’s partners for the project, Experion and V1.
In August last year, TRL Software and Experion Technologies in India announced they had set up a joint venture called TRL Technologies India, headquartered in Trivandrum, Kerala. The experience of these two specialist firms coming together will provide India with advanced traffic management solutions including the road asset management system ‘iROADS’, accident analysis software ‘iMAAP’ and ‘Urban Traffic Control’ (UTC) software. Having a local team will bring major benefits to the management of India’s road networks according to the partners.
Jason Glasson, senior responsible owner or the project with National Highways, said P-AMS was developed to align with the agency's emerging asset management system strategy. “The new system supports cross-asset data access and analysis and the company’s new data model. [It] will meet our needs right now, while maintaining a level of flexibility to adapt to new and emerging needs in the rapidly changing digital world.”
TRL recently announced that iROADS had been updated to include an open developer portal. This platform enables third-party developers and consumers to access client data through standard Open APIs, driving innovation, creating new data products and services and unlocking data from silos.
With an open developer portal, users can access an extensive range of data sets and services related to road infrastructure and maintenance, enabling them to develop solutions that to enhance the value of the iROADS Digital Road Asset Management System.
