Two years ago, SCI’s Steel Bridge Group (SBG) conducted an industry consultation involving a wide range of clients, consultants, contractors, fabricators and other specialists in order to gain a better understanding of the areas on which the group should be focusing regarding the development of best practice guidance over the next few years. This consultation exercise clearly indicated that the whole-life performance of structures requires better consideration at the early stages of the design process in order to consider whole-life costs and minimise the need for expensive maintenance interventions in later life. The SBG has therefore initiated a ‘Design for Operation & Maintenance’ workstream in order to identify the main access and maintenance problems on steel bridges and subsequently develop relevant guidance for the future.
As a first step, the SBG has developed an online survey (mainly directed to railway, trunk road and local authorities, maintaining agents/contractors, PPP concessionaire with maintenance responsibility as well as other bridge asset owners/maintainers) to better understand problems encountered with steel bridges, maintenance regimes and design approval procedures for new bridges. As the survey covers a wide range of topics and has some in-depth questions, it will take approximately 35 minutes to complete. You may wish to preview the full range of questions first to understand what information is required before you complete the full online survey which can be found here.
The Steel Bridge Group is very grateful for your time spent answering this ‘Operation and Maintenance’ survey as it will form the basis of the future SBG guidance produced on this important subject.
If you have any questions regarding the survey, contact Guillaume Vannier, SBG Secretary, SCI.
