The State of Municipal Asset Management in Ontario

Through its administration of the Canada Community-Building Fund (CCBF), AMO is required to report on sector progress in Asset Management (AM). AMO will be releasing an AM outcomes report in early spring, 2023. 

Leading up to this report and building on the 2015 Roads and Bridges, and 2018 State of Ontario’s Infrastructure studies, AMO engaged PSD Citywide Inc. to assess asset management maturity based on a sample of most recent iteration of Asset Management Plans. The report can be found here.

Based on this work PSD Citywide determined that AM sector progress has been steadily improving over the last decade, especially with regards to completing asset inventories and in the overall acceptance of AM practices by both municipal staff and councils. 

While the report notes a growth in acceptance in asset management and improvements in data quality, it points to limits with data quality that often correlates with weak data governance frameworks. Municipalities require better condition data and estimation of replacement costs to improve quality of their AMPs, particularly for non-core infrastructure. Asset categories with the most accurate replacement cost data include roads, bridges and culverts.

Building on this work, AMO has engaged Asset Management Ontario (AMONTario) to connect directly with AM practitioners to gather additional insights on adoption of AM practice and implementation of AMPs. A report by AMONTario in this regard is expected to be released by end of March.