ABSTRACT
Managers of transportation infrastructures have to handle portfolios of degrading bridges, generally with limited economic resources. In particular, hydraulic actions are considered a major concern since scour is the leading cause of failure for bridges with foundations in water. Therefore, risk-based approaches have been developed to prioritize interventions. In this paper, two recent guidelines to rank bridges according to their level of risk with respect to hydraulic actions are considered, namely the French guidelines issued by the Centre for Studies on Risks, the Environment, Mobility and Urban Planning (Cerema) and the Italian Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport guidelines (MIT). The two guidelines propose a multilevel procedure to assess portfolios of existing bridges with increasing degree of detail and complexity, which starts from a qualitative risk analysis. The two guidelines are compared, and the first level of risk analysis is applied to a real case study, the Borgoforte bridge, in Northern Italy.
