Making sense of bridge monitoring: Vision for the future

Abstract

This paper presents a vision for the future monitoring systems which will become normal requirements for management of bridges as key objects of national infrastructure in the UK and elsewhere. Rather than being pushed by authorities and legislation, we expect that bridge managers will recognize the clear business cases for investing in well-designed targeted monitoring. To support this proposition, the paper presents two case studied where state-of-the-art bridge monitoring technology was used or potentially could be used to: • Decide when to inspect and change bridge bearings, and • Decide when to close various traffic lanes to reduce probability of overstressing bridge structural components. © 2013 Taylor & Francis Group.