Running Works Plans

Running a Works Plan

A Works Plan has two main components:

• Treatment Set
• Budget Strategy

The Works Plan applies to the Network that the Treatment Set is based on. To run a National Works Plan, you must select a Treatment Set that is based on the National Network.

For a regional or route Works Plan, run the Works Plan against a Treatment Set that is based on an area Network. The Works Plan only analyses the Works Plan for the Area Network. The Budget and Network Level Strategies must also be selected appropriately for the chosen Network.

To run a Works Plan:

• In the Analysis module, click the Works Plan icon.

The Works Plan drop-down opens.

• Select Add Works Plan at the bottom of the drop-down. The Add Works Plan dialog is displayed.

• Enter a name for the Works Plan and click OK. The Works Plan window opens.

• Complete the following fields for the new Works Plan:

Years To Run

A Works Plan can be configured to perform forward planning for a pre-set number of years. Select the required number of years with the slider.

Treatment Set

Select the Treatment Set for the Works Plan from the drop-down list.

The Treatment Set must be based on the same Network that you are running the Works Plan for.

Budget

Select the required Budget Strategy for the Works Plan from the drop-down list.

The number of Treatments that are identified in any one year for a Works Plan are constrained by the Budget, subject to meeting of set strategy targets.

Prioritisation

Select the required prioritisation from the drop-down list.

If no prioritisation is selected, only the Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) is used to rank the Treatments in each year. Conditions vs Priorities When Prioritisation is set the weighting will be set as outlined below.

The Priority score is added to the Condition score using the weighting (Lambda) to determine the ranking of Treatments for the Works Plan.

Overall Treatment Score = Condition Score + Lambda * Priority Score.

• Lambda = 2 when Priorities are more important than Conditions
• Lambda = 1 when Priorities are as important as Conditions
• Lambda = 0.5 when Priorities are less important than Conditions

Strategies

In addition to the Budget strategy, a Works Plan can support a number of network-level or local (condition) strategies. To add a strategy to the Works Plan, click Add Strategy.

Adding a network or local strategy to the Works Plan will cause Horizons to generate extra output scenarios that attempt to satisfy those strategies (See Works Plan Scenarios).

Select whether the strategy is “Hard” or “Soft”:

Hard

Hard strategies are included in all the strategy-based scenarios from Scenario 3 (Hard strategies only) and onwards (Hard strategies plus all combinations of Soft Strategies).

Soft

Soft strategies are included in the strategy-based scenarios from Scenario 4 and higher. These scenarios include all the hard strategies plus all combinations of soft strategies.

Configuring Work Plan Options

You can configure a set of options that affect the outcome of the Works Plan. On the right hand side of the Works Plan window you can select the following options:

You can now configure the Works Plan to use the following options:

Use Residual Budget

This allows you to indicate whether any remaining budget (after all required treatments have been selected) should be used to fund other triggered treatments that would otherwise be deferred.

Allow Short Treatments

Many schemes may fail to meet the minimum treatment length criterion and would not be eligible for selection. This option allows shorts schemes to be selected to meet strategies.

Budget Limited

This option allows the selection of treatments that affect the strategies, but the result is limited by a budget. The resulting analysis details what is possible to meet the desired outcome whilst not exceeding a budget.

Skip Worst First Scenario

If this option is selected the worst first scenario is omitted.

Skip Asset Sweating Scenario

If this option is selected the Asset Sweating scenario is omitted unless the Works Plan has no strategies. When you have selected all the required options select OK.

• When you have configured the Works Plan, click Run. Analysis of the Network starts. While the Works Plan is building, you can close the window. A Works Plan that is being processed is listed in the Processing folder in the Works Plan drop-down.

• To see the progress of the Works Plan analysis, select the Works Plan from the Processing folder.

• When the processing is complete, the configuration of the completed Works Plan is listed in the Complete folder in the Works Plan drop-down. Horizons generates a variety of different scenarios to show the widest range of approaches to your Network’s needs.

The recommended scenario appears as a Layer folder in the Explorer module in the Layers drop-down. The folder contains layers covering the first six years of the recommended scenario.

How Horizons calculates monitors

When generating a Works Plan, Horizons uses the following work flow:

Monitors show condition data for each year before works are completed. Treatments are selected each year to meet the next year’s strategy targets.

You can see monitors after works are completed by running the analysis for an extra year.