Asset management for the Dutch railway system

Over the past decades, many infrastructure related management organisations have transferred from separate investment management and management and maintenance to a more integral asset management. Asset management is expected to optimise cost-effectiveness of infrastructure management. This paper will explore asset management in practice and serves as a first step of an in-depth research of asset management. Asset management is a broad concept, applied in many different branches. To be able to do this exploration, it is therefore important to define asset management the way we intend to use the concept in this research. The Institute for Asset Management 1 defines the concept as: “systematic and coordinated activities and practices through which an organisation optimally and sustainably manages its assets and asset systems, their associated performance, risks and expenditures over their life cycles for the purpose of achieving its organisational strategic plan” 2 . The main characteristic compared to other management approaches is the integral approach to the assets to be managed. Not only are investments in assets assessed on the basis of their whole life cycle rather than the unique investment of acquisition, but these investments are also related to the benefits of the assets for the functioning of the whole system of assets in its provision of service to society. With this approach, optimisation in system and contract management can be obtained. In this paper we will explore how asset management is being applied in the management of the railway infrastructure in the Netherlands, a country with one of the most densely used railway grids in the world. The question we intend to answer is how the above described intention works in a bit more detail. To this end, we use a few subquestions: How is the Dutch railway system management organised? How does asset management fit into this? And what are the goals