A Business Intelligence Approach to Prioritize Bridge Maintenance Activities

Given the general condition of road infrastructure in Costa Rica, the proper prioritization of maintenance activities for bridges is essential for government institutions to effectively plan and assign resource investments. This work presents the main results of an extension project developed by the e-Bridge program of the Costa Rica Institute of Technology, with the objective of designing and applying a methodology for prioritizing maintenance activities for bridges, taking as a case study the actual bridges managed by a specific regional municipality. To this end, first, a given set of bridges were inspected and evaluated. Then, with this detailed inventory information, a set of key bridge performance indicators were defined including structural condition, environmental variables, and socio-economical categories. Consequently, a tailor-made methodology was proposed to prioritize different kinds of maintenance activities for the respective bridges using the above-mentioned indicators. The methodology was implemented using a business intelligence tool to manage all the information and solve prioritization queries. This tool and the major findings of the project were shared during the project with community actors and municipality collaborators through several workshops. The resulting methodology and developed tool effectively support decision-making regarding bridge maintenance activities for the target municipality and could be applied nation-wide.