Developing Digital Tools to Enhance Visual Inspection of Bridges During Extreme Climate Events

Compared to the development of low carbon emission technologies such as EV, the adaptation of existing transport infrastructure to increase its ability to absorb and recover from the effects of climate change is relatively unexplored. Bridges form a critical link in our transport systems, and many have a design life exceeding 100 years. Therefore, they are one of the key climate-change relevant elements that needs to be considered when future proofing our transport networks. With substantial maintenance backlogs worldwide and limited budgets, the bridge management process is becoming increasingly critical to support connectivity across our regions. Existing bridge management systems have significant limitations. They often operate in isolation from other asset management tools and lack interoperability with geographical, societal, and climate-related data sets. These systems have limited capability to incorporate data from sensors, leaving engineering judgment as the primary decision-making factor within constrained time and financial resources. To address these challenges, it is essential to develop comprehensive bridge management systems that integrate with various data sources. This paper provides an overview of the current bridge management process in Northern Ireland and presents a number of interventions to improve the robustness of the decision-making process including enhanced interoperability with other data sources and improved inspector training using virtual reality.