An Australian railway bridge management framework

A large number of Australian railway bridges were constructed over 80 years ago and have become increasingly costly to maintain. Infrastructure managers are under pressure to maintain bridge structures to a specified performance level with less maintenance funding and fewer resources.Currently, some rail operators maintain bridges through generic assetmanagement systems which are simplistic and only address immediateoperational issues. This is despite the fact that a life cycle cost analysis is proven to strategically maintain bridge assets and reduce costs over their operational life. A new bridge management system (BMS) framework which consists of a life cycle cost analysis and strategy model is proposed in this paper. The model can provide solutions at the element, bridge and network levels. A brief background is provided on Australian railway bridge operational history. Finally, a new maintenance cycle is proposed and its components are discussed.