Harmonized Transport Infrastructure Monitoring in Europe for Optimal Maintenance and Safety
Abstract
The transport infrastructure in Europe is ageing and this condition creates a high risk for safety. Take bridges and tunnels for example: in the last two decades, there have been nearly 30 road and railway bridge and tunnels disasters with more than 300 people killed and many more injured. The road and railway transport network forms the backbone of European transportation systems, accounting for more than 80% of passenger transport and 50% of goods transport in Europe. They play a decisive role in the functioning and development of Europe’s and regional economy. Road and railway bridges and tunnels are the critical nodes on the transport infrastructure network. Along the major European transport corridors in the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), there are over 1234 km of road bridges with 100 m or longer span. This critical infrastructure is ageing. Over 50% of the bridges in Europe are older than 50 years and have now reached the end of their design life. Besides, most bridges currently carry significantly more vehicles than what they were originally designed for. This urgent issue is both European and global. In the U.S., Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has rated almost 200,000 bridges (one-third of all bridges) as .structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. With the ageing condition, adequate monitoring and maintenance become a crucial need. Recent tragic events, such as the Genoa bridge collapse, only highlight this need. The collapse of the Morandi Bridge in Genoa, Italy (2018, 43 people killed) has led to a year-long state of emergency in the Liguria region, extensive analysis of the structural failure, and widely varying disputes of liability, including a dispute between Italy and the EU. In the last two decades, almost 20 other bridges in different European countries (Italy, France, Portugal, Spain, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Ireland, UK, Greece, Romania) have collapsed or severely damaged with nearly 120 casualties and many injuries. Outside Europe, in the U.S. almost 30 transport bridges have collapsed with nearly 50 deaths and many injuries. The major cause of these disasters is structural failure. The need for robust standardisation is generally acknowledged by public authorities and industrial stakeholders. However, developing new European standards based on national state-of-the-art is not viable as there are only a few existing national standards in this field, and their coverage and technical depth are lacking. Getting a broad acceptance for the new standards will also be difficult, especially if changes in the existing procedures and agreements on monitoring and maintenance are implied. These may lead to discussions regarding responsibilities, liabilities and accountabilities among the policy-makers, public clients, design and engineering consultants, and construction firms – all of them are the key stakeholders in the currently fragmented value-chain in construction.
keywords Monitoring Test methods Reliability Assessment Lifetime
Publikationen
Project staff
Alfred Strauss
Univ.Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Alfred Strauss
alfred.strauss@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-87511
Project Leader
01.11.2020 - 31.03.2023
Konrad Bergmeister
O.Univ.Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.phil. Dr.techn. Konrad Bergmeister MSc. Ph.D.
konrad.bergmeister@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-87501, 87510
Project Staff
01.11.2020 - 04.10.2022
Project Staff
05.10.2022 - 31.10.2022
Lisa Ptacek
Dipl.-Ing. Lisa Ptacek B.Sc.
lisa.ptacek@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-87516
Project Staff
01.11.2020 - 04.10.2022
Project Staff
05.10.2022 - 31.10.2022
Fabian Sattler
Dipl.-Ing. Fabian Sattler
fabian.sattler@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-87516
Project Staff
01.11.2020 - 04.10.2022
Project Staff
05.10.2022 - 31.10.2022
Elisabeth Stierschneider
Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Elisabeth Stierschneider
elisabeth.stierschneider@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-87512
Project Staff
01.11.2020 - 07.10.2022
BOKU partners
External partners
TNO Niederlande
none
partner