Background
How can we provide opportunities for better recreational, health and social outcomes within current budgetary constraints?
Six TCCS communities had petitioned for new or upgrades to Playgrounds over the past two years. A key driver was 45% of Playgrounds being over 15 years old and so not providing quality play relative to the community expectations. New Playgrounds are costly to build to current design standards and TCCS has limited Playground renewal budgets; the asset strategy conversation had to be less about funding options, and more about sustainable service provision.
We can’t afford to maintain current services, so what can we do?
TCCS research data showed age and condition were not the main drivers for Playground utilisation; community perceptions of Play Spaces within a Playground as ‘Modern’ was key. Taking this service-centric approach, TCCS set a target for 75% of Play Spaces to be ‘Modern’ by 2028. With this as context, asset management scenarios were developed to show the future impact of different decisions over time. Prior to collaborating with Assetic™, TCCS had managed the Playgrounds’ asset strategy with a short-term view, working from annual budgets driven by renewing assets that were failing each year. There was minimal connectivity between asset strategy and service outcomes, and no way to optimise investment of limited funds to ensure maximum benefit to the community.
Brightly Assetic Involvement
Brightly Assetic and TCCS prepared asset management scenarios to optimise investments in Play Space assets based on current service provision and future asset utilisation. Further, Assetic partnered with TCCS’ Esri team to visualise the asset management options and service impacts by combining suburban demographics with future asset performance in a shared view. TCCS and Assetic’s collaboration has enabled a true customer service approach to asset management strategy for the Play Spaces across Canberra. This connection between service planning and asset planning enables optimisation of asset investments over time, maximising customer service outcomes. Esri technology facilitates this connection by visualising the relationship between these two processes, enabling asset managers to tell the future infrastructure story to decision makers and the community alike, making the asset management strategy consumable to all stakeholders.
The Future
TCCS will further-develop this service planning capability across other areas based on the learnings from the Play Space project. By combining the asset and location intelligence capabilities from Assetic and Esri with their data science and visualisation skills, TCCS is positioned to be a leader in both service planning and asset management visualisation.
Gone are the days of gut feelings and anecdotal wish lists in order to obtain funding for essential works. By taking a scientific and factual-based approach using spatial data the ability to influence budget outcomes, prioritisation of works and longterm planning has been enhanced greatly. There are numerous core activities and deliverables that TCCS is responsible for including roads, parks, stormwater, public amenities as well as delivering essential public transport for the residents of Canberra. Nothing outside exists in isolation and the power of being able to mix and mash different spatial datasets with asset management strategies allows for incredible insight on the reality of situational circumstances that influence what is occurring. We rely on this capability immensely to achieve specific business objectives.
James Downing
Systems and Information Manager, Transport Canberra & City Services
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