Maintenance prioritisation framework for Taiwan’s pedestrian bridges

Abstract

This paper presents a maintenance prioritisation framework for Taiwan’s 1268 pedestrian bridges. It aims to standardise their inspection and maintenance, as Taiwan’s current bridge management specifications and manuals only apply to its highway and railway bridge infrastructure. It is designed to assess the structural safety and serviceability of six pedestrian bridge types by visual inspection. To assign weight factors to the structural safety and serviceability components of the identified bridge types, two rounds of Delphi method interviews with bridge experts were conducted. The framework is centred on a weighted average condition assessment method that integrates expert-determined weight factors with visual inspection results to calculate a condition index (PBCI). Pedestrian bridges are ranked and classified based on their PBCIs to set appropriate inspection frequency and scope, and to inform maintenance resource allocation. The application of the framework to five pedestrian bridges in Taoyuan City demonstrated its practicality and value for bridge authorities tasked with managing large inventories of pedestrian bridges.