Bridges

Since 2018, the Victorian Department of Transport (DoT) has been on a journey to improve the asset management practices of Structures under their control by developing the Structures Service Framework (SSF). The SSF defines governance, roles and responsibilities, business rules and decision logics for all manner of structures management issues. This was done in parallel with APG94- 21 Engineering Guideline to Bridge Asset Management and in alignment with the International Infrastructure Management Manual. This has helped DoT define and establish processes and organisational structures to ensure full line of sight from asset owner, custodian and steward and to ensure that there are no overlaps, but more importantly no gaps in the structural asset management activities.

Commencing in 2021 and in conjunction with Austroads project ABT 6141 (Harmonisation of inspection process), DoT has further progressed the refinement of structures asset management in accordance with the SSF by creating a road structures inspection and monitoring strategy. This strategy redefines inspections as the key input into all aspects of the asset management planning and delivery programs and further shifts inspections from condition-based scoring to defect mapping for risk management. Further, it creates a risk-based approach to inspection intervals, allowing more efficient programming of inspection activities and enables risk to be optimally managed. This paper describes these two documents in detail and describes how they are helping DoT to shape optimal asset management of its structures.