The challenge in bridge management is to ensure that all bridges in a road network remain fit for their intended purpose over their design life and beyond at minimum life cycle cost. The bridge rehabilitation prioritisation process is part of the entire road infrastructure management task and bridge asset managers must seek a balance between the proposed performance targets and reasonable funding needs. This exercise must be conducted in the context of acceptable professional practice and community expectation of appropriate access standards and service function.

This report investigates the current practises in network level prioritisation of bridge maintenance interventions. Nineteen countries provided answers to different survey questionnaires designed to elicit details of the Bridge Management Systems and the bridge rehabilitation processes. The report presents the answers together with guidelines for prioritisation of maintenance interventions.