Key performance requirements for objective assessment & through‐life management of structures

The overall process in the life cycle assessment is the condition control of new or existing structures respectively. This is necessary for safeguarding the condition of a structure during its lifetime, and includes condition survey, performance assessment as well as for the evaluation of maintenance strategies. Usually deterministic performance prediction models that describe the future condition through a functional correlation between structure condition characteristics, such as the age of the structure, and the characteristics of mechanical, chemical and physical processes are used to capture the deterioration processes in the life cycle analyses. With increasing experience with the use of surveying technologies for acquiring information related to the current condition of bridges there is an ongoing shift towards data‐informed approaches to condition control. The identification and implementation of key performance indicators may improve existing assessment methods within management system of transport infrastructure. The IM‐SAFE project aims to characterize and systematize performance indicators for bridges. Based on these project outcomes, in this contribution, the systematized performance indicators for bridge systems are be presented and a case study is used to show how performance indicators can be coupled with risk‐based performance requirements, data‐informed assessment methods, inspection and monitoring concepts.