Quality control plans for road bridges

Abstract

The road authorities are bound to provide desired quality of service (QoS) to road users, or in more concrete terms fast, safe, comfortable and affordable travel. To this end, timely maintenance interventions are sometimes required and the purpose of the quality control plans is to specify circumstances under which the interventions should be triggered in order to ensure the desired QoS. The brief overview of the documents pertinent to bridge quality control revealed a large disparity in Europe with regard to the required QoS and its evaluation. The aim of the COST Action 1406 is to bring together, both researchers and practitioners in order to accelerate the establishment of a European guideline on this subject. In this paper the conceptual framework is presented that will guide the effort of the Action’s Working Group 3 “Establishment of a QC plan” to provide a consistent set of triggering criteria for maintenance interventions.