ABSTRACT
The German federal road network contains a large number of highway structures like bridges, tunnels, retaining walls and others. Maintenance and upgrading programs prepared for these structures not only require a high budget, but also influence the economy and society as a whole. Due to growing volumes of traffic and higher weights of trucks, bridges are subjected to increasing loads which implies that maintenance costs will be rising in the future. Considering the fact that financial resources become continuously tighter, money has to be spent in a way to obtain the largest possible benefit.
To make sure that the future increase in freight traffic can be managed with a sufficient safety level assessments of existing bridges that will in many cases lead to measures for upgrading and/or replacement have to be carried out. Hence, a strategy for the assessment together with a rehabilitation program for upgrading and/or replacing bridges has to be defined.
This task is being supported in the frame of a comprehensive Bridge Management System (BMS). This system is to provide the German Federal Ministry of Transport and digital Infrastructure with detailed information on the current situation at network level, and allows for estimation of financial requirements as well as strategies for realizing long-term objectives. Secondly, the Federal States and authorities are to be supplied with recommendations for performing improvements on object and network level in compliance with given strategies and budgetary restrictions.
Systematic bridge management should be understood as a process (Fig. 1). Starting out from bridge inventory and condition data resulting from regular bridge inspections damage analyses and deterioration prognoses can be made. According to defined maintenance strategies a priority ranking as well as a program formation, incl. the provision of required budget, can be carried. Control of the achieved results as well as a balancing of accounts follows the project planning and construction execution. Systematic Inventory Management. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315207681/cd556cd4-4dcf-4efe-8e29-56fc67b8bfbd/content/fig121_1.tif"/>
Sustainable Management of aging bridges and engineering structures is an indispensable pre-requisite for the retention of high quality, safety and availability of the Federal road network in Germany.
To fulfil these requirements, extensive work for the conception and realization of a comprehensive Bridge Management System (BMS) has been undertaken.
For the successful application of this system state of the art techniques and methodologies as well as very high-quality data on structures and their damages are important. In this context it has to be assured that besides design and inspection data information from special investigations and from monitoring applications can be included into the management process.
Suitable sets of standards, guidelines and procedures have been developed on National level. The result of these efforts is a comprehensive BMS that can be used on local and Federal level as a decision support system.
