Investment lacking in asset management equation, new report shows
The New Zealand Infrastructure Commission’s latest report, Taking Care of Tomorrow Today: Asset Management State of Play, shines a spotlight on the challenges and opportunities in managing New Zealand’s aging infrastructure. For professionals in the transport sector, the report offers a compelling case for prioritising proactive asset management to safeguard connectivity, resilience, and sustainability.
New Zealand’s infrastructure landscape is at a crossroads. While 99 per cent per cent of the assets required for the next three decades already exist, underinvestment in maintenance and renewal has left many sectors vulnerable. The report reveals limited awareness of asset management as a strategic discipline, with decision-makers often viewing it narrowly as maintenance or capital projects. This disconnect leads to deferred investments, reactive fixes, and a growing risk of system failures.
In transport, these gaps manifest as deteriorating road conditions, underfunded rail systems, and climate-vulnerable infrastructure. Yet, as the report emphasises, effective asset management offers the tools to not only address these challenges but also unlock long-term efficiencies.
Key findings for the transport sector
1. Maturity with gaps
While transport ranks higher in asset management maturity compared to other sectors, critical issues remain. For example: road maintenance often prioritises reactive over planned interventions, creating higher costs and safety concerns; and rail and port systems face challenges in integrating lifecycle asset management across networks.
2. Resilience under pressure
Recent weather events, such as Cyclone Gabrielle, highlighted the vulnerabilities of transport infrastructure. Flooded roads, impassable rail lines, and isolated communities underscored the need for robust risk planning and climate adaptation strategies.
3. Funding and workforce shortfalls
The transport sector is constrained by budget deficits and a lack of skilled asset managers, limiting its ability to implement best practices and adopt advanced tools like predictive maintenance.
The report outlines actionable strategies to strengthen asset management in transport, categorised under four key themes:
1. Governance Establish accountable leadership for asset management within organisations. For instance, appoint executive-level roles or committees to oversee long-term planning and implementation.
2. Transparency Require organisations to publicly report on asset performance and maturity assessments. This fosters accountability and aligns stakeholder expectations.
3. Resilience Embed climate resilience into all asset renewal cycles. Transport systems, particularly state highways and coastal infrastructure, must be designed to withstand increasingly severe weather.
4. Productivity Invest in training programs to grow the asset management workforce and leverage technologies to enhance decision-making.
By championing better asset management, the transport sector can lead the way in creating resilient, efficient, and sustainable infrastructure that meets the needs of future generations.
Whether it’s advocating for smarter investment strategies, implementing advanced asset monitoring tools, or driving cross-sector collaboration, transport professionals have a crucial role to play. As the report concludes, New Zealand’s future depends on making the most of the infrastructure it already has.
Never has there been a greater time to invest in and support, not undermine, asset management capabilities across central and local governments. So says Āpōpō President Gary Porteous, who welcomes The New Zealand Infrastructure Commission, Te Waihanga’s latest report Taking care of tomorrow today: Asset management state of play.
Setting out a high-level snapshot of New Zealand’s approaches to asset management, the report rates the country’s assets as ‘passable’, but only just.
“Effectively managing the infrastructure around us that enables so much of our quality of life is the endeavour of professionals with specific knowledge and skills in asset management,” Mr Porteous says. “But we struggle to put in place all the capabilities required for effective asset management.”
Investing in training programmes is a key component of Te Waihanga’s eight recommendations, critical to improving infrastructure providers’ asset management capabilities and processes.
It is heartening to hear Te Waihanga echoing this sentiment in its call to take care of tomorrow today,” Mr Porteous says. “We must increase, not decrease, investment in asset management capability development and knowledge sharing so that New Zealand has the skills and expertise required to make the most of the infrastructure we have.”
In a sustained effort to build asset management capacity and competency in New Zealand, Āpōpō has delivered over 6,500 short online Digital Badge courses in asset management and related topics over the past five years.
Yet they are seeing a concerning drop in participation after training and development budgets have been slashed – both in central and local government. The Association offers a no-cost Infrastructure Leadership and Governance Digital Badge to encourage decision-makers to be informed about what constitutes good asset management.
The portfolio of Digital Badge learning is an important component that seamlessly leads into the Āpōpō accreditation of Asset Management Chartered Professionals (AMCP), launched earlier this year. All these initiatives are designed so decision-makers can better discharge their accountabilities to the communities served by infrastructure assets, Mr Porteous says.
The Āpōpō professional pathway gives life to Te Waihanga’s recommendation that a clear training and professional pathway for asset managers be developed.
Mr Porteous also calls for public and private major infrastructure providers to adopt the pathway and endorse AMCP accreditation as a minimum standard of competence for their asset managers.
“The effect of this will be to raise the bar of asset management performance and to deliver effective and efficient use of that infrastructure more consistently for community benefit.”