Policy and Standards

Policy and standards include performance specifications, procurement and fiscal framework. One key issue relates to present procurement practices, typically prescriptive and based on

Key Elements of a National Infrastructure Framework

lowest initial cost. These practices are viewed as significant barriers to innovation and as the cause of reduced service lives and sub-optimum investment returns. Solutions to changing the present procurement philosophy include performance-based specifications and life-cycle cost accounting.

Another major concern of the Town Hall Meetings is the valuation and reporting/accounting of infrastructure assets. Although several initiatives across Canada and the U.S. are addressing this, numerous issues remain, such as how to quantify and integrate the engineering, social and environmental values of the assets, the total and residual life of the infrastructure and how the asset value is reported and to whom. Solutions to these issues should lead to uniform/ standardized methods of economic analysis.