Bridges and tunnels in Europe are vulnerable elements of the transport infrastructure, due to higher traffic loads than expected at the time of design, progressive ageing and deterioration of materials, insufficient quality control during construction, weak diagnostics of structures, suboptimal maintenance strategies, and additional risks originating from climate change, new man-made hazards and limited resources for renovation and replacement. There is a clear need of sound procedures for integrating and adopting the latest technologies, techniques and methodologies to account for monitoring in safety assessment, risk evaluation and decision making, necessary to radically improve asset management and to guarantee safety and resilience of transport infrastructure. 

Responding to this need, the objectives of project activities in the area of data-informed safety evaluation and maintenance strategies are:

• To analyse the current practice of data-informed performance assessment, structural safety evaluation and risk management of infrastructure supported by inspection, monitoring and testing.
• To develop a proposal for data-informed performance assessment, structural safety evaluation and risk management and proactive maintenance planning for transport infrastructures, which overcome the current barriers (ref. WP1) using innovative technologies (ref. WP2, WP4).