ABSTRACT
The state-of-the-art bridge management practice do not adequately account for flooding and related local scour, thus fail to provide crucial information to viably mitigate consequences of bridge failures. The current policies in practice, which are solely based on visual inspections, need to be updated with efficient, preferably quantitative methodologies for a comprehensive and timely screening of vulnerable bridges. The research is aimed at application of key performance indicators which consider relevant data for assessment of vulnerability to local scour. Herein, particularly bridge exposure and bridge resistance are assessed. The latter involves failure modes, an essential ingredient for evaluation of a probability of failure, which is related to the indicator of reliability. The guidelines are necessary for inspection of bridge vulnerable zones i.e. segments that have the key role in resistance to failure. The practical evaluation of the reliability class is presented for RC girder bridges, which support elaboration of adequate quality control plans.
