85 Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2440, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2014, pp. 85–93. DOI: 10.3141/2440-11 Because of the financial crisis of 2007 to 2008 and the subsequent eco- nomic downturn, funding for transportation agencies has been con- sistently reduced. This lack of funds prevents the building assets of transportation agencies from being efficiently maintained, so failures may occur that discontinue employees’ operations and activities and affect transportation system users. Thus, to maximize the use of avail- able funding, it is compelling to create innovative tools and techniques capable of estimating how potential failures can affect employees’ activi- ties and, eventually, transportation system users. Facility managers and decision makers could use such estimates to make decisions on mainte- nance of building assets that would minimize the risks of disruptions to employees and transportation system users. Among the capital assets of the Washington State Department of Transportation (DOT), transpor- tation equipment fund (TEF) shops are crucial in ensuring timely and effective care and maintenance of the majority of state vehicles and equip- ment. Therefore, any disruption of the operations of TEF shop facilities could significantly affect not only the Washington State DOT’s vehicles and equipment maintenance but also the department’s ability to fulfill its core mission. Given the importance of TEF shops, this exploratory case study investigates the failures that have occurred or are likely to occur in these facilities and employs discrete-event simulation to quantify the consequences of such failures on the shop activities and road users. All state and local transportation agencies share a similar core mis- sion of planning, developing, maintaining, and operating their own transportation system to ensure that users can travel safely and efficiently. However, the management of statewide or citywide transportation systems relies on a large set of employees who are engaged in a set of diverse activities, from managing the delivery of construction projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars to cleaning roads. Therefore, in addition to transportation assets, trans- portation agencies also own a large set of nontransportation assets, including buildings and equipment. In addition to office buildings, these building assets include many other unique types of buildings that directly support department operations, such as emergency and traffic management centers, or support other nonbuilding assets, such as vehicle repair shops. Most of these buildings provide cru- cial support to an agency’s core mission by housing employees who design, construct, maintain, and operate roadways and by housing and maintaining vehicles and equipment necessary for inspecting and maintaining transportation assets. Over the last several years, a lack of funding has resulted in the needs for maintenance and preservation at many building assets being disregarded. As a result, failures are likely to occur and disrupt employees’ activities. However, budget- ary constraints require transportation agencies to carefully estimate if the provided level of funding for transportation (e.g., preserving roadway pavement) or nontransportation assets (e.g., maintaining and operating capital facilities) can eventually cause disruptions to employees’ activities and operations and, in return, to transportation system users. CONDITION OF THE WASHINGTON STATE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION’S CAPITAL FACILITIES If the facilities related to the ferry program and rest areas are excluded, the Washington State Department of Transportation (DOT) relies on 3.2 million square feet of buildings for its activi- ties; 82% of this square footage is owned and the remaining 18% is leased (1). About 72% of the total building portfolio represents 289 primary buildings that are the focus of the activities of the Wash- ington State DOT’s capital facility program (2). These buildings include offices and crew spaces that house the department’s staff, vehicles, and equipment and have an average size of 2,000 ft 2 (3). As of September 2012, the Washington State DOT assessed the condi- tions of its primary buildings and categorized them into three groups: 8% were in good condition (i.e., 22 buildings), 52% in fair condi- tion (i.e., 150 buildings), and 40% in poor condition (i.e., 117 build- ings). The cost of correcting all the deficiencies was estimated at $132.5 million (2). However, trends in funding allocation between transportation and nontransportation assets suggest that this backlog gap will be difficult to fill, and a careful calibration of expenditures on building assets will be needed to minimize impact of building failures on the agency’s ability to fulfill its core mission. Thus, the Washington State DOT has to manage the limited available resources for capital facilities carefully; at the same time it must consider whether more resources must be allocated to maintain properly the facilities necessary to achieve its mission. Quantifying the Impacts of Failures of Departments of Transportation Building Systems on Road System Users Umberto C. Gatti, Omar El-Anwar, Giovanni C. Migliaccio, Ken-Yu Lin, and Yvonne Medina U. C. Gatti, O. El-Anwar, G. C. Migliaccio, and K.-Y. Lin, Department of Construc- tion Management, University of Washington, 120 Architecture Hall, Box 351610, Seattle, WA 98195. Alternate affiliation for O. El-Anwar: Structural Engineering Department, Cairo University, Cairo University Road, Oula, Giza, Egypt. Y. Medina, Washington State Department of Transportation, P.O. Box 47328, Olympia, WA, 98504. Corresponding author: O. El-Anwar, elanwar@uw.edu.