ABSTRACT
It is unclear what reliability performance can be expected from the South African bridge design code TMH-7, in catering for the current traffic demand. TMH-7 is partially based on an outdated code, BS5400, and was last revised in 1988. Since then, heavy vehicle traffic has increased significantly. A case study, based on traffic load effects derived from a single weigh-in-motion station on the National Route 3, is used to investigate the reliability performance of TMH-7. Statistical models are fitted to the traffic load effects and used to perform a reliability analysis. Preliminary results for the reliability level of different span lengths are found and compared to target levels proposed in other codes. The results show that TMH-7 is meeting the required reliability level for short to medium span bridges, but further investigation is needed.
