Ingår i: EPAM 2012: Malmö, Sweden, 5–7 September: 4th European pavement and asset management conference

Due to the increasing globalization, the traffic grows in the world and steadily in Europe. This also means that the existing infrastructure is increasingly under pressure and exposed that with increasing age. The Federal Highway Research Institute has carried out together with the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development (BMV at that time), and highway authorities of the federal states, a bridge management system (BMS) based on the information from the regularly bridge inspection according to DIN 1076. This bottom-up-approach makes it possible, with the help of extensive catalogues and behavioural models, to generate different measures and combinations of measures over a determined period at a bridge and to calculate costs. Besides the calculation of direct construction costs, the German BMS considers also the impact on traffic and includes the results in the evaluation of strategies. Because of this, important information for the sustainability aspects of "ecology", "economy" and social impact" are available within this BMS.