City Departments
ASSET MANAGEMENT DIVISION
What Is Asset Management?
In 2005 the City of Cambridge Council supported the development of an Asset Management Division, within the Transportation and Public Works Department. This allowed for the division to systematically collect infrastructure data and to embark upon a long-term approach to maintain, operate, rehabilitate, and replace City infrastructure (assets) to ensure they will provide the vital support of health and prosperity to the citizens and business community of today and our children of tomorrow.
What Is Infrastructure?
Infrastructure includes the pipes that move water to and from city homes/businesses, and the roads and sidewalks that connect our neighbourhoods. Cambridge's infrastructure, valued at over $1.2 billion, is made up of over 500 km of roads and over 2000 km of underground watermains, sanitary pipes, storm sewer pipes, and tens of thousands of related control devices. Some of the buried infrastructure is 100 years old.
Residents and business people alike have come to count on the services provided by this infrastructure, and this is why it is so important to invest in the maintenance and/or replacement of the assets that are aging within the city.
The Asset Management Strategy
Cambridge has adopted The National Guide to Infrastructure Sustainability which provides a strategic approach to implementing asset management. This approach leads to targeted maintenance, renewal, and replacement programs based on condition, service levels, and risk using life-cycle principles and detailed information about all assets.
Technology is an integral and essential part of Asset Management and as such, the City of Cambridge has made significant investments and acquired state of the art technology. Examples include harsh environment robotic video cameras, GPS, Geographic Information Systems by ESRI, Work Management Systems by IBM, and integrated databases by Oracle.
Technology is used to collect, organize, store and analyze the massive volume of data about the infrastructure network.
This enables the City to better access the short and long term cost of operating, maintaining, and renewing infrastructure to ensure that costs, revenue, reserves, and resources are managed effectively to avoid a degradation in service levels and/or abrupt future rate increases.
Selecting Which Infrastructure to Repair/Replace
Asset Management uses information about the infrastructure that indicates the condition, cost, risk, level of service, history, and projected remaining serviceable life to systematically identify which parts of the systems have the greatest need for renewal or replacement. This enables staff to look for opportunities to maximize the City's best bang for the buck.
This degree of planning enables well thought out investments for today and will ensure that future generations will inherit infrastructure that has been well maintained, and operates efficiently and effectively.
Current Status
Asset Management has aggressively followed industry standard practices, technologies, and methods for its implementation. Through collaboration with other municipalities across the country and abroad, Cambridge has achieved a number of milestones and is working towards the remaining stages.
Generally speaking Cambridge has followed the widely accepted National Guide to Sustainable Municipal Infrastructure that was developed by a consortium of Municipalities, the National Research Council of Canada, and other public and private organizations. It was developed using best practices and knowledge from a very broad range of individuals and is considered a world leading reference.
Construction of a new infrastructure and upgrades to existing infrastructure that is required because of growth is typically funded by developers as new subdivisions are constructed.
Existing infrastructure requiring replacement, major rehabilitation or renewal are typically funded through the City's Capital Budgets.
Ongoing operation and maintenance (O & M) of water and sewer infrastructure is supported by annual operating budgets which are funded by the water bills issued to users of water, sewer bills (part of the water bill), and taxation.
All money collected from water customers is used exclusively to fund water related costs. Similarly, all money collected from sewer customers is used exclusively to fund sewer (wastewater) related costs. All other O & M of other infrastructure is funded from municipal taxes.
Smarter City Technology
The City of Cambridge introduced new intelligence systems for infrastructure management that will help its municipal workers monitor infrastructure projects across the city in near real-time, making Cambridge the first municipality in Canada to be recognized by IBM as a smarter city. More than $1.2 billion worth of City assets are managed on the new knowledge-based system for infrastructure. The Government of Canada contributed over $978,700 towards this project through the federal Gas Tax Fund.
Click here to view the City of Cambridge's presentation City of Cambridge and IBM Build a Smarter City
Click here to view IBM's presentation Let's Build a Smarter Planet: Smart Cities
Click here to view an article re: Building a Smarter Planet
Click here to view an article regarding Smarter City Technology
Click here to read a recent Cambridge Times article
Click here to read a recent article from The Record
A Closer Look at the Assets
The Asset Management Division is responsible for assets that fall into the following groups:
In 2005 the City of Cambridge Council supported the development of an Asset Management Division, within the Transportation and Public Works Department. This allowed for the division to systematically collect infrastructure data and to embark upon a long-term approach to maintain, operate, rehabilitate, and replace City infrastructure (assets) to ensure they will provide the vital support of health and prosperity to the citizens and business community of today and our children of tomorrow.
What Is Infrastructure?
Infrastructure includes the pipes that move water to and from city homes/businesses, and the roads and sidewalks that connect our neighbourhoods. Cambridge's infrastructure, valued at over $1.2 billion, is made up of over 500 km of roads and over 2000 km of underground watermains, sanitary pipes, storm sewer pipes, and tens of thousands of related control devices. Some of the buried infrastructure is 100 years old.
Residents and business people alike have come to count on the services provided by this infrastructure, and this is why it is so important to invest in the maintenance and/or replacement of the assets that are aging within the city.
The Asset Management Strategy
Cambridge has adopted The National Guide to Infrastructure Sustainability which provides a strategic approach to implementing asset management. This approach leads to targeted maintenance, renewal, and replacement programs based on condition, service levels, and risk using life-cycle principles and detailed information about all assets.
Technology is an integral and essential part of Asset Management and as such, the City of Cambridge has made significant investments and acquired state of the art technology. Examples include harsh environment robotic video cameras, GPS, Geographic Information Systems by ESRI, Work Management Systems by IBM, and integrated databases by Oracle.
Technology is used to collect, organize, store and analyze the massive volume of data about the infrastructure network.
This enables the City to better access the short and long term cost of operating, maintaining, and renewing infrastructure to ensure that costs, revenue, reserves, and resources are managed effectively to avoid a degradation in service levels and/or abrupt future rate increases.
Selecting Which Infrastructure to Repair/Replace
Asset Management uses information about the infrastructure that indicates the condition, cost, risk, level of service, history, and projected remaining serviceable life to systematically identify which parts of the systems have the greatest need for renewal or replacement. This enables staff to look for opportunities to maximize the City's best bang for the buck.
This degree of planning enables well thought out investments for today and will ensure that future generations will inherit infrastructure that has been well maintained, and operates efficiently and effectively.
Current Status
Asset Management has aggressively followed industry standard practices, technologies, and methods for its implementation. Through collaboration with other municipalities across the country and abroad, Cambridge has achieved a number of milestones and is working towards the remaining stages.
Generally speaking Cambridge has followed the widely accepted National Guide to Sustainable Municipal Infrastructure that was developed by a consortium of Municipalities, the National Research Council of Canada, and other public and private organizations. It was developed using best practices and knowledge from a very broad range of individuals and is considered a world leading reference.
- Inventory of Assets have been completed. Business practices, procedures, and protocols are currently undergoing change to ensure that information about new infrastructure being added to the system and changes to existing infrastructure is being captured into the Asset Management Geodatabase in a timely manner.
- Condition of assets is in progress. Some infrastructure such as roads, sidewalks, and watermains have already been assessed and are being refined periodically, while others such as sewer pipes are well underway.
- Valuation of assets are complete. The cost to replace individual assets and groups of assets have been calculated and are updated annually based on current construction costs. This information is being used to project future capital costs. This information is being provided to Finance to support the Public Sector Accounting Board (PSAB) reporting requirements that is coming into effect via legislation beginning in 2009.
- Prioritization of operating, maintenance, and renewal programs is underway using the inventory, condition, cost, and levels of risk information contained within the system. This is achieved through annual needs assessments. Over the next few years, the method used to identify needs and prioritization will evolve to be more sophisticated allowing additional information to be used as it becomes available and to include optimization.
- At this time, capital needs projections are being developed using life-cycle principles, along with a review of operating and maintenance programs. This information will provide the basis of what money and resources are needed to sustain the infrastructure at agreed upon service levels. This information will be used as input for a review of water and sewer rate structures as well as a longer term perspective of taxation requirements on the road and storm drainage systems.
Construction of a new infrastructure and upgrades to existing infrastructure that is required because of growth is typically funded by developers as new subdivisions are constructed.
Existing infrastructure requiring replacement, major rehabilitation or renewal are typically funded through the City's Capital Budgets.
Ongoing operation and maintenance (O & M) of water and sewer infrastructure is supported by annual operating budgets which are funded by the water bills issued to users of water, sewer bills (part of the water bill), and taxation.
All money collected from water customers is used exclusively to fund water related costs. Similarly, all money collected from sewer customers is used exclusively to fund sewer (wastewater) related costs. All other O & M of other infrastructure is funded from municipal taxes.
Smarter City Technology
The City of Cambridge introduced new intelligence systems for infrastructure management that will help its municipal workers monitor infrastructure projects across the city in near real-time, making Cambridge the first municipality in Canada to be recognized by IBM as a smarter city. More than $1.2 billion worth of City assets are managed on the new knowledge-based system for infrastructure. The Government of Canada contributed over $978,700 towards this project through the federal Gas Tax Fund.
Click here to view the City of Cambridge's presentation City of Cambridge and IBM Build a Smarter City
Click here to view IBM's presentation Let's Build a Smarter Planet: Smart Cities
Click here to view an article re: Building a Smarter Planet
Click here to view an article regarding Smarter City Technology
Click here to read a recent Cambridge Times article
Click here to read a recent article from The Record
A Closer Look at the Assets
The Asset Management Division is responsible for assets that fall into the following groups:
- Water System click here
- Sanitary Sewer System click here
- Storm Water Drainage System
- Road Network
- Sidewalks
If you would like more information on Asset Management, please call (519)621-0740, Extension 4302.
Related Documents
| DOCUMENT | DESCRIPTION | DATE POSTED | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asset Management | |||
| Federal Gas Tax Update | September 2010 report providing an update on Federal Gas Tax and the City of Cambridge's Asset Management Division | 2010-09-21 | PDF 95Kb |
| General | |||
| Asset Management Presentation by Mike Hausser | The City of Cambridge was recently recognized as Canada's first smarter city by IBM. View the presentation on the knowledge-based system the municipality has engage to management more than $1 billion in assets. | 2010-09-09 | PDF 1359Kb |
| IBM Presents on Smarter Cities | Leading the way for Canadian municipalities, IBM today named Cambridge the first smarter city in the nation. Mike Marsonet from IBM delivered this presentation at the press conference and technology showcase. | 2010-09-09 | PDF 884Kb |