| A system, developed for the state of Texas, is reported, which determines an allocation budget for bridge replacement and rehabilitation projects, suing multi-attribute criteria and user-friendly computer programs. The system is a two level closed loop procedure based on national bridge inventory data and addresses both state and district level concerns. One state level program determines those bridge projects meeting FHWA financing criteria while two other programs take this subset and apply specific state criteria for project ranking and prioritization. The user of these programs can rank the candidate projects using a multi-attribute technique and can complement this with an automatic qualification process based on user defined threshold values. The multi-attribute approach uses statistical techniques applied to the entire state bridge population. Therefore, as the database is regularly updated in accordance with FHWA requirements, it captures both recent deterioration and improvements to structures. A district reporting program incorporates regional knowledge of structures and their condition into the decision-making process. Advanced reporting and data manipulation procedures are available at the State level of the system, in order to assemble the final project selection list.;The proposed system should interest all state officials engaged in ranking bridge projects. Incorporating managerial experience and using statistics based on current national bridge survey data means that the findings are relevant throughout the United States. |
