TMR Queensland Government: Delivering smarter statewide road investments with ADVICE, enabled by SAP technology
The Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR) Queensland
The Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR) faces a complex challenge investing in pavement rehabilitation and surfacing treatments across Queensland’s vast road network. Legacy systems make it difficult to deliver the right treatment, at the right time, and in the right place. With over 33,000km of roads and a 20-year planning horizon, every investment decision affects safety, cost, future condition and value of public assets. The Asset Deterioration, Valuation and Investment Calculation Engine (ADVICE) solution is a cloud-based, AI-powered platform that simulates millions of scenarios and optimizes investments across the State.
| Industry | Company size | Region |
| Government | 9,000 | Queensland, Australia |
The opportunity
Maintaining a vast road network without sacrificing time, cost, or safety
Queensland’s legacy pavement management system limited the optimization of $500m/year in treatments. Roads were grouped broadly, deterioration curves were outdated, environmental data was basic, and scenario modelling was not fit-for-purpose. Analysis took hours or days, and they could not optimize across the state, as runs had to be completed by district or road network.
The solution
Powering statewide asset optimization with SAP AI Core
The ADVICE project leverages SAP Business Technology Platform and SAP AI Core, deployed as a cloud-based solution to optimize asset management strategies. TMR innovated by integrating advanced modelling with environmental datasets with SAP’s scalable architecture, enabling engineers to simulate thousands of strategies and evaluate millions of options in minutes/hours. This approach combined predictive deterioration curves with granular sustainability factors, delivering unprecedented accuracy and speed. By automating complex analysis and embedding intelligence into workflows, the solution addressed the challenge of time-intensive, manual planning and empowered data-driven decisions for long-term infrastructure resilience.
Redefining statewide asset management
ADVICE redefines asset management by orchestrating one of Australia’s complex optimization problems on SAP BTP. SAP AI Core is the innovation engine, automating and scaling end-to-end optimization—handling data pre-processing, solver execution, and post-processing—while integrating with Fiori/UI5 for a unified experience. SAP Datasphere and HANA Cloud manage high-volume data, Integration Suite and Data Intelligence orchestrate pipelines, and SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) delivers insights. The solution analyses ~30,000 km of sealed roads, 300,000 segments, and 5,000 treatment options per segment, resulting in ~30 million plans. The optimization process considers the top 100 treatments, evaluating combinations against budget and performance over 20–30 years. Statistically robust validation, scenario modelling, and right-sizing of BTP services underpin a scalable optimization platform.
The result
Delivering measurable impact and a platform for future innovation
Statewide, targeted optimization
Enabling investment in the right place, at the right time, with the right treatment – reinvesting ≥2% of the annual pavement budget (≈$9.5M/year) into high-priority maintenance, which maximizes asset life, reduces lifecycle costs, and delivers better outcomes of communities.
Automated, rapid processing
Reduced statewide scenario analysis cycle times from 11 hours to 4 hours, empowering business users to deliver insights faster (Districts can be completed in minutes). TMR saw 80% faster results delivery, as teams now prepare and check results faster, with fewer errors. Decisions are made quickly and can be easily reviewed, helping TMR respond and plan more effectively.
Improved data quality, reliability, efficiency, and auditability
Automated data quality checks reduced manual effort and errors, while statewide study setup, data quality checking, and reporting times were cut from 5–7 days each to just 1 day—supporting more accurate, timely, and auditable decision-making. In fact, ADVICE helped TMR become 10x more precise, enabling much finer, targeted investment decisions. Road funding goes exactly where it’s needed, improving safety and value for Queensland communities.