LGAM Knowledge Base

Access Chamber - An access chamber (or manhole) is a structure designed to allow access to an underground service, such as a stormwater pipe or a sewer.

Access Lane - An access lane is a rear or side lane providing access to parking on lots with street frontage and/or short connections between access places or access streets principally to facilitate movement of service and emergency vehicles.

Access Place - An Access Place is a cul-de-sac or minor street providing local residential access with shared traffic, pedestrian and recreation use, but with pedestrian priority.

Access Road - An Access Road is a road that provides access to abutting properties with amenity, safety and aesthetic aspects having priority over the vehicle movement function. These roads are bicycle and pedestrian friendly. They are managed by local government.

Access Street - An access street is a street providing local residential access with shared traffic, pedestrian and recreation use with local traffic priority.

Accrual Accounting - Accrual Accounting is an accounting method that recognises revenues as they are earned and expenses as they are incurred.

Accumulated Depreciation - Accumulated depreciation is the total amount of depreciation charged to an asset from when it was first recognised to a given point in time.

Acoustic Logging - Acoustic logging is a method of determining the location of a leak in a water main, by placing listening devices at known distances along the main.

Advanced Asset Management - Advanced Asset Management is Asset Management which employs predictive modelling, risk management and optimised decision making techniques to establish asset lifecycle treatment options and related long term cashflow predictions.

Aerobic Wastewater System - An Aerobic Wastewater System is an aerobic biological wastewater treatment system, usually producing secondary treatment.

Aerodrome - An aerodrome is a defined area on land or water (including any buildings, installations, and equipment) intended to be used either wholly or in part for the arrival, departure and surface movement of aircraft.

Aerodrome Beacon - An Aerodrome Beacon is an aeronautical beacon used to indicate the location of an aerodrome from the air.

Aggregate - Aggregate is a material composed of discrete mineral particles of specified size or size distribution, produced from sand, gravel, rock or metallurgical slag, using one or more of the following processes: selective extraction, screening, blasting or crushing. Aggregate is used in the construction of sprayed seals.

Airport - An airport is a location where aircraft such as Fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and blimps take off and land.

Airport Terminal - An airport terminal is a building at an airport where passengers transfer between ground transportation and the facilities that allow them to board and disembark from aircraft.

Allotment Drainage - Allotment Drainage is a system of field gullies, manhole chambers and underground pipes constructed within private property to convey flows through and from allotments.

Annual Average Daily Traffic - Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) is the total volume of vehicle traffic of a highway or road for a year divided by 365 days. AADT is a useful and simple measurement of how busy the road is.

Annual Depreciation - Annual Depreciation also (Annual Depreciation Charge & Annual Depreciation Expense) is the amount of depreciation charged against an asset or a group of assets over the course of a financial year.

Annual Service Cost - The Annual Service Cost is an estimate of the cost that would be tendered, per annum, if tenders were called for the supply of a service to a performance specification for a fixed term. The Annual Service Cost includes operation, maintenance, depreciation, finance, opportunity and disposal costs, less revenue.

Aquifer - An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock or unconsolidated materials (gravel, sand, silt, or clay) from which groundwater can be usefully extracted. Some Councils rely on aquifers for part of their water supply.

Aquifer Recharge System - An Aquifer Recharge System is a system for pumping or otherwise transferring stormwater or treated wastewater from a surface storage into an aquifer.

Arterial Road - An Arterial Road is a road that predominantly carries through traffic from one region to another, forming principal avenues of travel for traffic movements.

Art Gallery - An art gallery is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.

Asbestos - Asbestos is a fibrous form of mineral silicates belonging to the serpentine and amphibole groups of rock-forming minerals, including actinolite, amosite (brown asbestos), anthophyllite, chrysotile (white asbestos), crocidolite (blue asbestos), tremolite, or any mixture containing one or more of the mineral silicates belonging to the serpentine and amphibole groups.

Asbestos Cement - Asbestos Cement (AC) is am material constructed from sand aggregate and cement reinforced with asbestos fibres.

Asbestos Management Plan - An Asbestos Management Plan is a document created to help persons with control of premises to comply with the asbestos prohibition and prevent exposure to airborne asbestos fibres while ACM remain in the workplace.

Asbestos Register - An Asbestos Register is a register of asbestos-containing materials.

Asphalt - Asphalt is a composite material consisting of bituminous binder and mineral aggregate mixed together then laid down in layers and compacted.

Asphalt Overlay - An Asphalt Overlay is a course of asphalt applied to and existing road surface or other pavement.

Asset - An asset is an object (physical or intangible) that has an identifiable value and a useful life greater than 12 months, that is or could be used by the entity responsible for it to provide a service.

Asset Class - An asset class is a grouping of assets of a similar nature and use.

Asset Component Checklist - An asset component checklist is a list of component types that could be part of a typical asset of a particular asset type.

Asset Condition - Asset condition is a measure of the health of an asset.

Asset Condition Assessment - An Asset condition assessment is the process of continuous or periodic inspection,assessment, measurement and interpretation of the resultant data to indicate the condition of a specific asset so as to determine the need for some preventative or remedial action.

Asset Condition Inspection - An Asset Condition Inspection is an inspection carried out on an asset to determine its condition.

Asset Disposal Plan - An Asset Disposal Plan is a plan that documents the timing of, and the costs associated with the disposal of assets. It typically forms part of an Asset Management Plan.

Asset Hierarchy - An asset hierarchy is a framework for segmenting an asset base into appropriate classifications. The asset hierarchy can be based on asset function; asset type or a combination of the two.

Asset Inventory - An asset inventory is a list of assets containing sufficient information about the assets to physically locate and identify them.

Asset Management Framework - An asset management framework is the way in which asset management is approached within an organisation.

Asset Management Improvement Plan - An Asset Management Improvement Plan is a strategic plan that provides for monitoring and control of the Asset Management Improvement Activites. It provides the link between the Asset Management Strategy and the annual operations plans and budgets. This plan will ensure that acceptable progress is made on improving asset management processes and procedures and that progress can be verified and quantified.

Asset Management Plan - An Asset Management Plan (AMP) is a plan developed for the management of one or more infrastructure asset classes with a view to operating, maintaining and renewing the assets within the class in the most cost effective manner possible, whilst providing a specific level of service."

Asset Management Policy - An Asset Management Policy is a high level document that describes how an organisation intends to approach asset management within the organisation.

Asset Management Strategy - An Asset Management Strategy is a strategy for the implementation and documentation of asset management practices, plans, processes & procedures within an organisation.

Asset Management System - An Asset Management System (AMS) is software system designed to manage assets.

Asset Register - An asset register is a database containing specific information about the assets owned or controlled by an organisation.

Asset Replacement Profile - An asset replacement profile is the projected variation over time of capital expenditure on replacement of assets.

Asset Revaluation Reserve - An asset revaluation reserve is a reserve account that records any surplus resulting from an asset revaluation.

Asset Strategic Plan - The Financial Management Standard 1997 requires asset strategic planning to be undertaken by agencies as part of their strategic and operational planning processes. The asset strategic plan links with other strategic plans of the agency including finance, human resources and information systems as enabling strategies for the delivery of the agency's core services.

Asset Sustainability Ratio - The Local Government Association of South Australia collects information on the performance of all Councils as part of its Comparative Performance Measurement Project (CPMP). Sources of this information include a number of government agencies, and a voluntary community survey.

Attack Hydrant - An attack hydrant is a term used to describe a fire hydrant with flow and pressure suitable for fighting a fire at a commercial premises. In most cases it would be an internal hydrant on a commercial premises supplied from a permanent booster pump or a fire fighting appliance.

Audit Trail - An audit trail is a cross-referenced record of relevant information accompanying an entity's financial statements, sufficient in detail and clarity to enable an informed opinion to be formed as to the validity of such statements.

Australian Height Datum - The Australian Height Datum (AHD) is a geodetic datum for altitude measurement in Australia.

Auxiliary Lane - An auxiliary lane is that portion of the carriageway adjoining through traffic lanes, used to separate either faster overtaking traffic or slower moving vehicles from through traffic, or for other purposes supplementary to through traffic movement.