| dc.description.abstract | Currently maintenance of bridges is performed by either quantity-undetermined open contracts or specific project contracts. However, breakdowns of maintenance activities into labor, equipment, and material costs are still unavailable which results in difficulties for the personnel who are responsible for bridge maintenance when performing budgeting. Thus, maintenance activities are simplified into a few bid items in these two types of contracts during tendering process due to lacking of a set of standardized maintenance methods and their related activities. In addition, since there are many possible maintenance methods for various types of deteriorations, validity of the tendering results need to be verified. There are also several factors need to be considered that affect bridge maintenance costs such as traffic conditions, distance for material transportation, height of piers, and maintenance at nights, etc. It is a big challenge to the inexperienced engineers who are in charge of budgeting of bridge maintenance work.
In this research, many bridge maintenance contracts were firstly collected. Literature reviews and expert interviews were also conducted to clarify the current practice of bridge maintenance work. Results of this research are concluded as follows: (1) categorizing all possible types of deterioration for bridge components, (2) indentifying feasible maintenance methods for each type of deterioration, (3) standardizing maintenance activities for each of the maintenance method, and (4) exploring possible cost influence factors for each of the maintenance activity. These research results not only can serves as useful references to the personnel in bridge maintenance agencies in budgeting of bridge maintenance work, but also can provide valuable know-how to inexperienced bridge engineers.
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