Survey of Sponsors of
Group Transit Asset Management (TAM) Plans

U.S. Government Accountability Office

Introduction

  The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), as part of its work as an agency of Congress, is conducting a survey of organizations that served as sponsors of group transit asset management (TAM) plans for public transit agencies. You are receiving this survey because the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) identified your organization as having acted as a group TAM plan sponsor.

The purpose of the survey is to gain the perspectives of group TAM plan sponsors on the benefits of the TAM program, the challenges of meeting TAM requirements, and ways to improve the TAM program, if any. The survey will cover, among other things:

• The TAM requirement to inventory assets;
• The TAM requirement to assess the condition of assets;
• FTA’s TAM performance measures; and
• Other TAM plan requirements.

If your organization is a transit agency that also completed a TAM plan specific to your organization, please complete this survey from your perspective as a group TAM plan sponsor. You will likely receive a second survey regarding your experiences with your agency-specific TAM plan.

If you received an extension from FTA regarding the TAM requirements, including a TAM plan extension, and have not completed all of the TAM requirements please answer the questions to the best of your ability.

GAO will take steps to ensure the privacy of your responses. We will not include any information that would allow an individual respondent to be identified. The results of the survey will be reported in aggregate, and we will not release individually identifiable data outside of GAO, unless compelled by a court or requested by the Congress. The results of our evaluation will help inform Congress about issues related to transit asset management. We plan to complete our report in the spring, 2020. At that time, the report will be available on our website at www.gao.gov.

We understand that there are great demands on your time, but your response is very important. We would like to receive your survey responses within two weeks of receipt of this email.

To learn more about completing the survey, printing your responses, and whom to contact if you have questions, click here for help. Thank you in advance for your assistance in taking part in our survey.
(View responses)
 

Asset Management: Inventory

 
The following capital asset categories are required to be included in the asset inventory according to TAM requirements:

• Rolling Stock: All revenue vehicles used in the provision of public transit.

• Equipment: All non-revenue service vehicles and equipment with a value greater than $50,000 used in the provision of public transit, except third-party equipment assets.

• Facilities: All facilities used in the provision of public transit (excluding bus shelters).
 
(View responses)
 
1.  How challenging, if at all, is the process to coordinate the consolidated group plan asset inventory across all participants in the group TAM plan for the following types of assets?
(View responses)
   
Very challenging
Moderately challenging
Slightly challenging
Not at all challenging
Don’t know
Not applicable
a.  Rolling Stock
(View responses)
b.  Equipment
(View responses)
c.  Facilities
(View responses)
 

Asset Management: Condition Assessment

 
The following capital asset categories are required to be included in the condition assessment performed by a transit agency according to TAM requirements:

• Rolling Stock: All revenue vehicles with direct capital responsibility used in the provision of public transit.

• Equipment: All non-revenue service vehicles and equipment with a value greater than $50,000 with direct capital responsibility used in the provision of public transit, except third-party equipment assets.

• Facilities: All facilities used in the provision of public transit with direct capital responsibility (excluding bus shelters).

 
(View responses)
 
2.  When defining the data to be used as part of the condition assessments for rolling stock assets for the group TAM plan, how important were the following factors?
(View responses)
   
Very important
Moderately important
Slightly important
Not at all important
Don’t know
Not applicable
a.  FTA’s default Useful Life Benchmark (ULB) for vehicles. This represents the expected service life for each vehicle class.
(View responses)
b.  Agency-specific ULB
(View responses)
c.  Operating miles or hours
(View responses)
d.  History of asset repair or maintenance
(View responses)
e.  Visual inspection
(View responses)
f.  Other factors (please specify)
(View responses)
 
  If you checked "other factors" (above), please describe these factor(s).
(View responses)
 
3.  When defining the data to be used as part of the condition assessments for equipment assets for the group TAM plan, how important were the following factors?
(View responses)
   
Very important
Moderately important
Slightly important
Not at all important
Don’t know
Not applicable
a.  FTA’s default Useful Life Benchmark (ULB) for equipment. This measure represents the expected service life for each class.
(View responses)
b.  Agency-specific ULB
(View responses)
c.  Operating miles or hours
(View responses)
d.  History of asset repair or maintenance
(View responses)
e.  Visual inspection
(View responses)
f.  Other factors (please specify)
(View responses)
 
  If you checked "other factors" (above), please describe these factor(s).
(View responses)
 
4.  When defining the data to be used as part of the condition assessments for facilities for the group TAM plan, how important were the following factors?
(View responses)
   
Very important
Moderately important
Slightly important
Not at all important
Don’t know
Not applicable
a.  FTA's Transit Economic Requirements Model (TERM) Lite Score
(View responses)
b.  Age of asset
(View responses)
c.  History of asset repair or maintenance
(View responses)
d.  Visual inspection
(View responses)
e.  Other factors (please specify)
(View responses)
 
  If you checked "other factors" (above), please describe these factor(s).
(View responses)
 

Asset Management: Condition Assessment (cont.)

5.  How challenging, if at all, is the process to coordinate the condition assessments across all participants in the group TAM plan for the following types of assets?
(View responses)
   
Very challenging
Moderately challenging
Slightly challenging
Not at all challenging
Don’t know
Not applicable
a.  Rolling Stock
(View responses)
b.  Equipment
(View responses)
c.  Facilities
(View responses)
 
6.  How clear, if at all, are FTA’s instructions regarding assessing the condition of the following capital assets as part of TAM requirements?
(View responses)
   
Very clear
Moderately clear
Slightly clear
Not at all clear
Don’t know
Not applicable
a.  Rolling Stock
(View responses)
b.  Equipment
(View responses)
c.  Facilities
(View responses)
 

FTA's Performance Measures

7.  FTA’s defined performance measure for rolling stock is the percentage of revenue vehicles (by type) that exceed the Useful Life Benchmark (ULB). How challenging, if at all, is the process to measure the performance of rolling stock for the group TAM plan?
(View responses)
 
8.  FTA’s defined performance measure for equipment is the percentage of non-revenue service vehicles (by type) that exceed the ULB. How challenging, if at all, is the process to measure the performance of non-revenue service vehicles for the group TAM plan?
(View responses)
 
9.  FTA defines the performance measure for facilities as the percentage of facilities (by group) that are rated less than 3.0 on the Transit Economic Requirements Model (TERM) Scale. How challenging, if at all, is the process to measure the performance of facilities for the group TAM plan?
(View responses)
 

Performance Measures: Targeted Goals

10.  FTA’s 2018 TAM requirements required group TAM plan sponsors to report established annual targeted goals for performance measures. Thinking about the group TAM plan participants’ capital planning purposes, how useful, if at all, is it to establish performance measure targets for the following types of assets? In addition, how useful, if at all, is it to establish these targets on an annual basis?
(View responses)
 
How useful to establish targets for these asset types?
How useful to establish these targets on an annual basis?
a.  Rolling Stock
(View responses)
 
(View responses)
 
(View responses)
b.  Equipment
(View responses)
 
(View responses)
 
(View responses)
c.  Facilities
(View responses)
 
(View responses)
 
(View responses)
 

Additional TAM Requirements

 
The following questions relate to the following TAM plan requirements:

• Investment Prioritization: Transit agencies must develop a ranked list of proposed projects and programs ordered by year of planned implementation. The prioritization is locally determined based on policy and need and must adequately consider identified unacceptable safety risks and accessibility requirements. The list should also be fiscally constrained based on estimated funding levels.

• Decision Support Tools: Transit agencies should list the analytical processes used to make investment prioritization to estimate capital investment needs over time and to assist in prioritization. Examples may include specialized software such as TERM-Lite, but does not have to be specialized software.
 
(View responses)
 
11.  How challenging, if at all, is the process of developing a prioritized list of projects for the group TAM plan?
(View responses)
 
12.  How challenging, if at all, is the process of using decision support tools to interpret and analyze data while working with group TAM plan participants?
(View responses)
 

Steps to Complete TAM Requirements

13.  In order to complete TAM requirements, did your organization make any changes to your asset management software capabilities, such as acquiring new software or upgrading existing software?
(View responses)
 
14.  In order to complete TAM requirements, did your organization hire consultants, contractors or additional workers to complete any of the following tasks?
(View responses)
   
Yes
No
Don't know
a.  Inventory capital assets
(View responses)
b.  Perform condition assessments
(View responses)
c.  Develop group TAM Plan
(View responses)
d.  Develop performance measure targets
(View responses)
e.  Submit required information to the National Transit Database
(View responses)
f.  Other tasks (please specify below)
(View responses)
 
  If you checked "other tasks" (above), please provide a brief description.
(View responses)
 

TAM Extension

15.  Did your organization request an extension for the group TAM plan?
(View responses)
 
a.  Please describe the reason(s) why your organization requested an extension:
(View responses)
 

Comments on TAM Requirements

16.  Do you have any comments regarding any benefits that your organization or the agencies in the group TAM plan realized, or are likely to realize, as a result of developing or implementing TAM requirements?
(View responses)
 
17.  Do you have any comments regarding your organization’s experience developing or implementing group TAM plan requirements, or any improvements you would suggest for the program?
(View responses)
 

Contact Information

  Please provide the following information for the primary person completing this questionnaire in the event we need to contact you to clarify a response:
(View responses)
 
  Name:
(View responses)
 
  Agency or Organization:
(View responses)
 
  Title:
(View responses)
 
  Email:
(View responses)
 
  Telephone:
(View responses)
 

Complete the Survey

  Are you done with this questionnaire?

Clicking "Yes" below tells GAO your answers are final.
(View responses)
 


Questionnaire Programming Language - Version 6.3
U.S. Government Accountability Office

Please wait, file upload in progress.