Consistency of bridge deterioration rates across agencies

Most agencies having analytical capabilities in their bridge management systems use inspections based on bridge elements and condition states, and use Markovian deterioration models. It is common to base these models on expert judgment elicitation, but increasingly agencies have sufficient data to develop deterioration models using past inspection and work accomplishment data. In the United States, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials maintains the Pontis bridge management system, used in 45 of the nation's 50 states, and offers a standardized inspection manual. This makes it possible to estimate and compare deterioration models among agencies, to investigate the level of consistency in model parameters and to understand how agency characteristics, policies, and climate can affect deterioration rates. In this paper, models developed for Florida and Virginia are compared, describing how the similarities and differences between these two agencies affect deterioration rates for pure Markovian and hybrid Markovian/Weibull models.