Survey on life-cycle structural performance indicators for bridges

A survey on life-cycle performance of civil structure and infrastructure systems has been conducted among researchers and experts from universities, industries, engineering firms and agencies active in the field of life-cycle civil engineering. The survey was aimed at gathering information about successful practices and explore avenues to overcome obstacles to filling the gap between theory and practice. The results of the survey were reported in the January 2018 issue of the ASCE Joumal of Structural Engineering. In this paper, the survey database is further processed considering only the group of respondents working in the bridge engineering sector to investigate the role of life-cycle performance indicators in design, assessment and maintenance of deteriorating bridges. The main results are presented and discussed with emphasis on the need to incorporate life-cycle concepts, criteria and methods in bridge structural design codes, standards and guidelines.