New bridges are usually considered as long term investments. Therefore they should be designed to comply not only with the demands on trafficability and durability of today, but also with the future demands. For the road manager the goal should be to find solutions which fulfil present and future demands on trafficability etc. at the lowest socio-economic life cycle costs. An important parameter in this optimization process is the type of structure selected for the new bridges. The selection naturally depends on the physical obstacles which are to be bridged, parameters concerning demands of road-users and society, and on other considerations relating to design and construction as well as on experience of management of the existing bridge stock.

This report aims at analysing the selection of types of structures from the road manager's point of view according to the influence of their own experiences and illustrated by experiences in Western, central and Northern Europe, Northern America and Asia.