Using a Dynamic Risk Based planning approach for the City of Fort Myers Infrastructure Improvements Program

The City of Ft. Myers contracted GHD to develop a Digital Master Plan for their drinking water, wastewater, and reuse systems. The goal of the Team was to identify projects prioritized by risk, condition, and capacity in the Capital Improvement Program (CIP). The development of the CIP differed from a typical Master Plan because it used the EPA Asset Management framework to determine the best blend of investment into maintenance, operations, and capital projects to sustain performance while minimizing lifecycle costs at an acceptable level of risk. The plan was leveraged through a cloud-based decision-making platform by integrating the available tools, processes, and information to make informed decisions, and is designed to inform data driven decision support quickly without ambiguity. Master Planning is an important component of any municipality's program to meet future needs. This 'roadmap' is designed for short-, medium- and long-term planning horizons for future growth, water supply, wastewater management and water reuse. Tasks to help the City improve investment decisions and have more information available on their assets included developing an asset hierarchy, risk framework, risk analysis, and project prioritization for linear assets. The approach to the Capital Improvement Planning task was using age and capacity as failure mode triggers in risk calculations to develop projects and determining project prioritization. Typically, master plans provide a static presentation of future conditions. However, for the City, a dynamic plan was developed by prioritizing projects using management strategies that included a combination of capacity, risk and condition. Priority Level 1 and 2 are given the highest priority (replacement as the intervention strategy) since capacity deficiencies is considered the imminent failure mode. Priority levels 3 to 5 (Rehabilitation/Monitoring as the intervention strategy) are purely based on condition of the asset and has been divided according to the core-risk scores. The intervention strategies for assets are updated dynamically through the cloud-based decision-making system considering the uncertainty and change that occurs over time to reduce inefficiencies and shortcomings of planning for a static predicted future. Project prioritization based on the core risk scores and the improvements proposed through hydraulic modeling for each planning horizon can be visualized in a digital format for ease of presentation and use. As new data are available; these models are changed so the City can have better insight of their system and the investments needed to maintain their service to their customers. This digitized plan using risk-based approach provides a positive return on investment, reduces operating costs, and lowers asset failure risk. The platform greatly enhanced knowledge of the City's linear assets with respect to knowing the remaining useful life and relative Consequence of Failure (CoF). The outcome is a future state structured for continued successes in meeting future needs and challenges. The presentation will illustrate with a demonstration of the application of the framework, explain why it is important to plan for uncertainty, and provide the benefits of digital plan. Using this approach and technology will enable municipalities create robust and flexible long-term strategies that will also employ the best use of municipal dollars.