AbstractQuick recovery of damaged bridges following natural disasters is most vital and helpful. The authors are developing a new type of emergency bridge with the scissor mechanism of expanding equipment as a quick recovery solution. This paper proposes the design method based on the solution of the equilibrium equations for a full-scale experiment of a scissors-type bridge in static mechanics. This method can obtain the dominant sectional force for each scissor member of the bridge. The presented design method was evaluated in comparison with the experimental data of a loading test for a full-scale scissors-type bridge that can withstand the load of a light vehicle. It was confirmed that this method is useful for a recovery bridge system.