Optimization of Maintenance Strategies for the Management of the National Bridge Stock in France
Publication: Journal of Bridge Engineering
Volume 16, Issue 1
Abstract
Maintenance and repair activities are crucial to prevent the deterioration of highway bridges and ensure users’ safety. In 2006, the French Ministry of Transportation initiated a survey to improve the maintenance strategies of its bridge stock. This study was justified by the introduction of new financial regulations in France. Each Ministry is now enforced to assess its performance through indicators and targets. On behalf of the Ministry of Transportation, the Roads Directorate needs to determine the preservation policy for roads and bridges based on annual quality indicators such that target values are reached for the horizon 2020. During the last decades, inspection and maintenance strategies applied on the most deteriorated engineering structures enabled to maintain an acceptable level of service and safety. However, these management strategies can obviously be largely improved. Facing these stakes, the methodology presented in this paper is elaborated to optimize the allocation of maintenance funds. The objective is to determine the global financial resources needed to satisfy the constraints on the quality indicators over the next 15 years. The proposed model is based on Markov chains fitted to condition data collection. By including prediction models in the cost analysis, different maintenance strategies are evaluated. Applied to the French national bridge stock, the procedure shows that a slight increase of the annual budget is required to fulfill the asset performance requirements fixed by the Roads Directorate.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The writers are grateful to the Roads Directorate and to SETRA for providing data from the inventory database. They want in particular to thank Mrs. Nathalie Odent, Mr. Michaël Toriel, and Mr. Guy Poirier, certified Engineers, for their invaluable help and cooperation.
References
Bazaraa, M. S., Sherali, H. D., and Shetty, C. M. (1992). Nonlinear programming: Theory and algorithms, Wiley, Hoboken, N.J.
Bremaud, P. (1999). Markov chains, Gibbs fields Monte Carlo simulation and queues, Springer, New York.
Corotis, R. B., Ellis, J. H., and Jiang, M. (2005). “Modeling of risk-based inspection, maintenance and life-cycle cost with partially observable Markov decision processes.” Struct. Infrastruct. Eng., 1(1), 75–84.
ITSEOA. (1979). Technical guidelines for surveillance and inspection of engineering structures, Ministry of Transportation, Paris (in French).
Lounis, Z. (2003). “Identification of environmental categories for Markovian deterioration models of bridge decks.” J. Bridge Eng., 8(6), 353–361.
Odent, N., and Berthellemy, J. (2002). “Bridges asset ageing process model and theoretical simulation of a maintenance budget policy on bridge condition in national heritage.” Bridge Maintenance, Safety and Management, Proc., IABMAS’02 Conf., CIMNE, Barcelona, Spain, 67–68.
Odent, N., Berthellemy, J., Cremona, C., Orcesi, A., and Toriel, M. (2008). “Optimization of bridge management policies on the French national roads network.” Bridge Maintenance, Safety, Management, Health Monitoring and Informatics, Proc., IABMAS’08 Conf., Taylor & Francis, London, 614–621.
Orcesi, A. D., and Cremona, C. F. (2006). “Optimization of the reinforced concrete bridges maintenance by using Markov chains.” Advances in Bridge Maintenance, Safety Management, and Life-Cycle Performance, Proc., IABMAS’06 Conf., Taylor & Francis, London, 105–106.
Orcesi, A. D., and Cremona, C. F. (2009). “Optimization of management strategies applied to the national reinforced concrete bridge stock in France.” Struct. Infrastruct. Eng., 5(5), 75–84.
Orcesi, A. D., and Cremona, C. F. (2010). “Optimal maintenance strategies for bridge networks using the supply and demand approach.” Struct. Infrastruct. Eng., in press.
Scherer, W. T., and Glagola, D. M. (1994). “Markovian models for bridge maintenance management.” J. Transp. Eng., 120(1), 37–51.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Bridge Engineering
Volume 16 • Issue 1 • January 2011
Pages: 44 - 52
Copyright
© 2011 ASCE.
History
Received: Mar 22, 2009
Accepted: Mar 23, 2010
Published online: Mar 25, 2010
Published in print: Jan 2011
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.