Asset management: working together on management and maintenance

Case
Smart sustainable transport

Joint management of the Stadsbaantunnel Utrecht

Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment

The Stadsbaantunnel in Utrecht is owned by the municipality of Utrecht. It runs alongside the state tunnel of the A2 motorway which is owned by Rijkswaterstaat – the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment responsible for the design, construction, management and maintenance of the main infrastructure facilities in the Netherlands. Twynstra supported both the municipality of Utrecht and Rijkswaterstaat by looking into the options of working together for management and maintenance purposes.

Contact

Joining forces

The Stadsbaantunnel is part of the municipality of Utrecht’s urban road network. As such, the municipality also owns the tunnel and is legally responsible for safety. The tunnel runs alongside the A2 Leidsche Rijntunnel however and this state-owned tunnel is the responsibility of Rijkswaterstaat Midden-Nederland. It makes sense therefore that both organisations join forces for management and maintained purposes. This will also benefit both information exchange and quality. The municipality of Utrecht will remain the owner of the Stadsbaantunnel.

From vision to implementation

Both the contracting parties asked Twynstra to come up with a proposal for the partnership, from an initial vision right through to detailed processes and organisation. To be able to do this, we spoke to people in both organisations at every level, from operational staff to directors. We firstly drew up a uniform vision together for the management and maintenance of the tunnel that included ambitions in terms of accessibility, costs, preventive maintenance and sustainability. We then mapped out the work processes for maintenance, dealing with calamities, training, drills, etc. Per activity, we made it very clear who is responsible for what. We detailed which organisations would need to be involved, down to the roles, competencies, capacity and costs, and we used simulations to test the work processes. All the agreements were then incorporated into covenant.

Future-proof asset management

This covenant has made the asset management of the Stadsbaantunnel future-proof. The partnership also ensures that the available resources are used to maximum effect. Joining forces has created a solid foundation on which to build, as there is greater awareness now than ever before about the needs and challenges of the tunnel’s sustainable management. The agreements are clear and things have been organised in such a way that both parties know what they are doing.

Combining knowledge

For this assignment, we used our detailed knowledge of tunnel safety, asset management and contract management. We combined this with our knowledge of partnership and organisational science.