Some recent catastrophic impacts on highway bridges around the world have raised\nconcerns for assessing the vulnerability of existing highway bridges in Canada. Rapid aging of bridge\ninfrastructure coupled with increased traffic volume has made it crucial to establish an advanced\nBridge Management System (BMS) for highway bridges. This paper aims at developing a highway\nbridge inventory for the province of British Columbia (BC) which is critical for efficient assessment\nof the existing structural health condition of the bridges, predicting their future deterioration, and\nprioritizing their maintenance and retrofitting works. This inventory is an extensive assemblage of\ndata on highway bridges in BC under the responsibility of the BC Ministry of Transportation and\nInfrastructure (BC MoT) that includes more than 2500 highway bridges. It includes identification\nof the most common bridge types along with their location, structural and geometric parameters\nsuch as construction materials, bridge length, number of spans, deck width, skew angle, bridge pier,\nand foundation type, structural health condition rating and construction period. This information is\nof paramount importance for effective infrastructure management, proper rehabilitation solutions,\nand efficient design of a Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) and Control System for enhancing\nstructural resilience of highway bridges in BC. Several statistical analyses have been carried out for\nefficient utilization of the information available in the inventory for further research and analyses, as\nwell as for developing a proper BMS for the province�s bridges.
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