ABSTRACT
Infrastructure systems, such as bridges, are a driver for economic growth and development of countries. Similarly, development of operation and maintenance strategies for infrastructure systems may aim at optimal management using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as reliability, redundancy, availability, safety, economy, environmental performance, and resilience. With a background in Danish consultancy and Austrian research this paper discusses how KPIs are accounted for in current bridge management. New technologies, such as structural health monitoring, artificial intelligence supported virtual/immersive inspections and reliability-based structural assessments, push for quantitative rather than qualitative decisions regarding interventions on element or structural level. Combined with risk-based decision-making based on multiple KPIs should allow bridge managers to make more objective, transparent and better decisions. This paper provides examples of some of the gaps between research-based decision-making models and technologies and thereby also the gap between current and future decision-making practice in Denmark and Austria.
