ABSTRACT
Bridge managers are constantly challenged to ensure infrastructure assets are available and meet Road Controlling Authority (RCA) and society performance expectations even with aging bridge stocks and budget constraints. To ensure constructed systems perform near to planning and design expectations requires the Bridge Manager to apply a systematic approach to monitoring and managing bridge condition and levels of service. Risk based methods are applied to the bridge stock to ensure basic as-planned performance is met with this not only monitoring bridge condition but collecting data to improve understanding of factors that impact bridge performance, including geological, hydrological, seismological and environmental characteristics.Planned residential and employment growth impacts traffic demands on road networks and this in turn will impact bridge level of service requirements. Bridge Managers need to be aware of these changing network requirements and adjust data collection programmes to ensure bridge management decision making is fully informed. Network planning may require reconfiguration of the road network that may require new bridge stock or existing bridge upgrades with interim and/or long term service life options, higher and increased number of vehicle loads and improved facilities for traffic (more lanes) and other bridge users (public transport, pedestrian/cyclists) to be considered. This paper focuses on bridge upgrade planning and recognizes that while this may be managed independently from the business as usual (BAU) Bridge Management team highlights the importance for there to be collaboration between the teams with the bridge data collection, using the collective bridge history and site access knowledge of the BAU Bridge Management team. With the mutual benefits of the data collected it is considered the BAU Bridge Manager needs to take a significant role with the data collection planning for the bridge upgrade. A systematic approach, including Structural Health Monitoring for long term option data collection, is proposed to inform the bridge upgrade planning.This paper provides an overview of bridge planning, risk management and common issues for bridge management decision making for bridge upgrade planning. The paper recognizes society expectations for improved network resilience and robustness associated with cost effective bridge upgrades.
