The challenge and opportunity
The City of Ann Arbor, home to the University of Michigan, recently lifted a longstanding streetlight moratorium that limited annual funding. The City had resulting pent-up demand to install new streetlights and improve pedestrian safety, but funding levels were inadequate to maintain existing streetlights. City staff needed to demonstrate the necessity for increased funding to both maintain and improve the street lighting system.
City staff identified known challenges to determine what resources would be needed:
- Prioritizing projects (balancing adding new lights vs. repairing old ones)
- Turning the data they gathered into actionable information to make the case for increased capital funds, while being mindful of competition with other departments
- Choosing between older methodologies and newer asset management software
Building a strategy
The City of Ann Arbor had already purchased Predictor to successfully optimize their water and sewer system funding strategies. Instead of purchasing additional software for streetlights, staff leaders decided to use Predictor as its primary data analysis engine. Predictor allowed the analysis of all streetlight components: electrical, luminaire, post and foundation and base.
Along with trusted partners OHM Advisors, the City first looked to available condition assessment data and current inventory, weighing them against factors such as traffic, location, critical users and existing lighting levels. They identified a goal of no greater than 10% of streetlights reaching end-of-life. The City was confident this goal would be achievable, strategized and documented.
The existing $300K budget for infrastructure could not accommodate new and maintain existing streetlights, so investment strategies needed to be vetted. City staff and OHM Advisors used Predictor to run a multicomponent funding analysis for a 25-year period. The results clearly identified a winning strategy among the four scenarios modeled: a budget increase to $710K with an expansion of 30 new streetlights per annum.
Results
Within 8 weeks, the City of Ann Arbor had built a model from the data previously collected as part of their Streetlight Condition Assessment project, and presented the optimal investment strategy to the Council through visually articulated data.
“The multi-component analysis of Predictor allowed the City to leverage existing streetlight condition information to present data-driven budget needs to Council,” says Chris Elenbaas, PE, Public Works Engineer at the City of Ann Arbor.
They secured a 137% funding increase for streetlights and are on track to meet their newly defined service goal (10% or fewer streetlights at end-of-life). Thanks to Predictor’s support for multiple asset classes, the City saved considerable IT funds, resources and training. With the increased funding and necessary expansion, the City is now on track to improving safety within the service area.