Support for AASHTO Committees and Councils. Roadmap to Update Bridge Evaluation

The purpose of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Manual for Bridge Evaluation (MBE) is to serve as a resource for developing policies and procedures for the inspection, evaluation, and load rating of in-service highway bridges. The National Bridge Inspection Standards (NBIS) are the regulations for bridge safety inspection, load rating, and inventory requirements. The MBE is incorporated by reference in the NBIS. The MBE has not been comprehensively updated to incorporate changes in federal legislation and requirements, including (1) element-level bridge inspection on the National Highway System, (2) bridge management system as part of Transportation Asset Management Plan, (3) NBIS, and (4) the Specification for the National Bridge Inventory (SNBI). Additionally, the MBE updates have not kept pace with innovations, research, and best practices, such as nondestructive evaluation techniques, underwater imaging, uncrewed inspection systems, bridge asset management systems, oversize/overweight permitting, posting, extreme event response, nonredundant steel tension members, and risk-based inspection intervals. Past updates lacked a holistic approach, which led to inconsistencies throughout the MBE. Some MBE topics may benefit from consolidating existing documents into the MBE, relocating existing MBE topics to other AASHTO documents, or creating independent manuals to streamline the user experience. Research is needed to identify the steps for a systematic update of the AASHTO MBE. The objective of this research is to develop a roadmap to update, optimize, and restructure the in-service inspection, evaluation, and load rating requirements for highway bridges.

• Record URL:
  http://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=5642
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Contract to a Performing Organization has not yet been awarded.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Proposed
• Funding: $200000
• Contract Numbers:

  Project 20-123(21)

• Sponsor Organizations:

  National Cooperative Highway Research Program

  Transportation Research Board
  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001

  Federal Highway Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590

  American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO)

  444 North Capitol Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Project Managers:

  Abu-Hawash, Ahmad

• Start Date: 20241015
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bridges; Inspection; Manuals; Specifications
• Subject Areas: Administration and Management; Bridges and other structures; Highways; Maintenance and Preservation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01910130
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Transportation Research Board
• Contract Numbers: Project 20-123(21)
• Files: TRB, RIP
• Created Date: Feb 27 2024 2:40PM