Bridge Management Information Systems (BMIS) Laboratory

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History of the Bridge Management Information Systems Laboratory

Following the collapse of the Silver Bridge in 1967, the Nation’s attention became focused on the deterioration and safety of the national bridge network. As a result, in the early 1970’s, the National Bridge Inspection Program was established by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). This program requires State agencies to conduct inspections of bridges every 2 years and submit the inspection results to the Federal Government, who maintains the results in the National Bridge Inventory (NBI) database.

Bridges represent critical components within the Nation’s transportation network. Bridges represent substantial public investments that require state-of-the-art technologies and an expert knowledge base to optimize their performance and benefit to the public over time. It is therefore crucial to understand the factors influencing bridge deterioration and load carrying capacity degradation, and the relationship between these factors and individual structures. In addition, it is imperative to understand the impacts of deficient bridges on traffic congestion, incidents, etc., as this understanding will prove invaluable in supporting decisions regarding optimal investments in bridge management. Improving bridges, hence traffic congestion, incidents and related factors will result in saving lives and significant economic gains.

The NBI data has been collected and maintained for more than 25 years, thus providing the most comprehensive multiyear source of network level composition and condition information for US highway bridges. Despite the large potential for research and analysis offered by the NBI database, it has not always been easy for bridge engineers and other interested parties to readily access the multiyear data and glean information from this historical performance database for the purposes of research and analysis.

FHWA has a strong tradition of understanding the need for innovations and has actively participated, promoted, and provided leadership roles in advanced research initiatives. With a similar mindset towards proactive leadership and recognizing the need for higher-risk research with potential longer-term payoffs, the FHWA created the Bridge Management Information Systems Laboratory in 1999.FHWA began this research initiative to facilitate gaining a new understanding of bridge performance problems by developing a multiyear historical bridge inspection database to enable researchers to perform time series and predictive analyses on the NBI. This effort included integrating the NBI data with external climatic, seismic, and other natural hazard data via Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technology to expand research beyond information provided through the NBI.

Prior to this initiative there had been no national investigations of national bridge trends and causative factors for deficiencies. Research and investigations were further facilitated through integration of the NBI data with information from various FHWA programs to enable a holistic view of the highway system, element-level inspection data and environmental and natural hazard data.This will aid in a better understanding of influences on highway structures and the structures’ responses to various stresses.

Page Contact: Dr. Hamid Ghasemi
(202) 493-3042
Hamid.Ghasemi@fhwa.dot.gov

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