Bridges

Road agency inventories in Australia and New Zealand include approximately 50,000 structures that are being managed as bridges. In Australia and New Zealand on arterial roads alone, the value of structures being managed as bridges exceeds A$10b, and annual expenditure on bridge maintenance is of the order of A$100m. This report contains the main findings from a literature search in mid-2001 on bridge management, with emphasis on the capability of bridge management systems being used by public sector road agencies around the world. The report outlines bridge management system practice in around 40 road agencies in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australasia, and summarises the functions, advantages and limitations of 11 of the more accomplished bridge management systems. An important purpose of this report is to assist Australian and New Zealand road agencies in further developing their systems for bridge management at both project and network levels. The world literature survey was therefore supplemented by a questionnaire survey of Austroads members. The report summarises the development status of systems for bridge management being used in 2001 by nine of the major road agencies in Australia and New Zealand. The literature search and the survey identified a severe lack of consistent historical data on bridge condition that could be used for developing and calibrating deterministic prediction models for works effects and bridge deterioration. The report raises issues such as bridge management based on minimum condition criteria or on fit