Editorial

Infrastructure asset management is an evolving and multi-faceted discipline that continually responds to new challenges in the planning, delivery, operation, and safeguarding of infrastructure systems. The Journal of Infrastructure Asset Management reflects this evolution through its publication of high-quality research across a broad spectrum of topics and sectors. The present issue highlights the breadth of the field, ranging from the evaluation of strategic bridge infrastructure and the optimisation of transport service-area layouts to the responsiveness of planning processes, the integration of technology into educational infrastructure, and the protection of digital asset transactions. Taken together, the papers share a common thread: the need to ensure that infrastructure systems, whether physical, organisational, or digital, remain fit for purpose in the face of changing societal expectations, technological disruption, and growing performance demands.Importantly, this issue also underscores the journal’s ongoing commitment to publishing research that makes a meaningful contribution to both academic knowledge and professional practice. Across these contributions, there is a clear emphasis on evidence-based evaluation, optimisation, stakeholder benefit, and future-oriented decision making. Whether the subject is a nationally significant bridge, a service-area parking system, a planning process, a college campus, or a digital transaction environment, each paper is concerned in its own way with improving performance, increasing resilience, and enabling better-informed intervention strategies. In that respect, the issue speaks directly to the core aims of infrastructure asset management: to understand assets and systems in context, to manage uncertainty intelligently, and to support decisions that deliver long-term value for society. In this issue, SDGs 4 and 9, encompassing Quality Education and Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, are given particular emphasis.Specifically in this issue, the paper by Mustafy et al. (2026) examines the performance, significance, and impact of the Jamuna Bridge in Bangladesh, one of the country’s most important items of national infrastructure. The paper provides a broad assessment of the bridge’s engineering significance and wider socio-economic contribution, emphasising its role in improving connectivity, enhancing trade and commerce, generating employment opportunities, and contributing to improved quality of life. The study also underlines the importance of ongoing maintenance, inspection, and structural health monitoring in ensuring the bridge’s continued safety and serviceability. In doing so, it highlights a central lesson for asset managers: the value of major bridge infrastructure extends well beyond initial construction and depends on long-term stewardship, monitoring, and informed intervention to sustain safety, functionality, and public benefit over time.The paper by Liu et al. (2026) addresses the planning and optimisation of parking infrastructure in expressway service areas, a topic that has received comparatively limited attention despite its growing operational importance. The authors propose a two-stage framework that first analyses parking characteristics at the levels of lots, zones, and berths, and then develops a dual-objective optimisation model to improve parking space allocation by simultaneously increasing parking capacity and improving departure efficiency. Using a case study from the Huanglishu Service Area in Nanjing, the paper demonstrates that the optimised schemes can increase parking capacity substantially relative to the existing layout. Beyond the immediate case study, the contribution lies in showing how a more systematic and data-driven understanding of user behaviour and facility performance can lead to tangible improvements in infrastructure efficiency and service quality. The paper is therefore a valuable addition to the literature on transport-support infrastructure and its optimisation.The third paper by Elvarsson et al. (2026) makes an especially important conceptual contribution by introducing, for the first time, the notion of the responsiveness of infrastructure planning processes. Rather than focusing only on the appraisal of infrastructure alternatives, the paper steps back to consider how planning processes themselves might be evaluated and improved in relation to changing societal needs. Using a realistic but fictive highway planning example in the Zurich Oberland, the authors explore how different process variations affect the timely accommodation of stakeholder needs under uncertain futures. A particularly valuable insight emerging from the work is that reducing time alone does not necessarily yield the best outcome; rather, responsiveness must be understood in relation to societal value, uncertainty, consensus-building, and the broader structure of the planning process. This paper broadens the scope of infrastructure asset management by showing that better infrastructure outcomes depend not only on better assets but also on better processes for deciding when, why, and how those assets are modified.The fourth paper by Mohammed et al. (2026) examines how technology integration can support educational needs through improvements to existing infrastructure in a college in Ghana. Based on a quantitative survey of faculty, administrators, and students, the study shows that current infrastructure is widely perceived as inadequate, while also demonstrating that technology integration has meaningful potential to improve teaching and learning outcomes. At the same time, the findings suggest that implementation remains uneven, with more limited perceived benefits in relation to sustainability and decision support. The paper is particularly valuable in that it situates educational infrastructure within the wider asset management and development agenda, showing that digital tools, smart classrooms, connectivity, and data-enabled systems are increasingly central to the performance of learning environments. Its recommendations point towards a more strategic, phased, and sustainable model of infrastructure modernisation, especially relevant for institutions in developing contexts.Finally, the paper by Shen (2026) addresses the security of digital economy asset transactions through the combined application of particle swarm optimisation and blockchain technology. Although operating in a markedly different domain from the more conventional infrastructure topics in this issue, the paper speaks directly to the expanding boundaries of infrastructure asset management in an era of digital transformation. The study proposes an integrated approach in which PSO is used to optimise asset allocation and risk-response strategies, while blockchain provides transparency, immutability, and transaction security. The reported findings indicate improved portfolio performance alongside faster and more secure transaction processing. More broadly, the paper illustrates how concepts of asset management are extending into digital environments where efficiency, resilience, trust, and security are as critical as they are in physical infrastructure systems. It also serves as a reminder that the infrastructure of the future will increasingly encompass both tangible and intangible assets and that the tools of management must evolve accordingly.Taken as a whole, this issue illustrates the richness and continuing expansion of the infrastructure asset management field. The papers collectively demonstrate that effective asset management is no longer confined to maintaining physical structures alone; it also requires an understanding of operational performance, process design, user needs, digital integration, and security. In this respect, the issue offers a timely reminder that infrastructure systems must be understood as socio-technical systems, in which assets, organisations, data, users, and governance arrangements interact to shape outcomes. The contributions assembled here, therefore, offer both technical insight and strategic perspective and will be of interest to researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and infrastructure owners alike.The Editorial Board of the Journal of Infrastructure Asset Management is made up of highly qualified and experienced representatives from industry and academia, from the public and private sectors, infrastructure owners and/or managers to legislators, regulators, and policymakers. As a board, we are always on the lookout for additional members to join our team and to contribute to raising the profile of the work of the journal. If you are interested in joining the board, please contact the Commissioning Editor at [email protected] directly enclosing a CV with your application. If you are interested in contributing an article to the journal this can be done via the editorial system ReView (Link to a PDF of the cited article.). Articles can be submitted for general or themed issues with all information provided via the website. The journal publishes its most recent articles Earlycite on its Link to a PDF of the cited article. (Link to a PDF of the cited article.). The Board thanks you for your interest and/or contributions to the journal and to raising its profile and to facilitating its ongoing success.