Progress Report on the Present Conditions and Technical Cooperation Related to Bridge Maintenance Management in Kingdom of Bhutan

Abstract

The paper introduces a technical cooperation project on bridge maintenance management in Bhutan. The project is performed under the “Technical Cooperation” program funded by JICA. As there is no railway system in Bhutan, road is an essential transport system, and there are more than 300 road bridges in the country. However, as most of the bridges are “Bailey Type Bridge” which is commonly used as a temporal bridge, the load capacity and the road width is quite limited comparing to the permanent bridges. Therefore, detail management is necessary to use the bridges safely. The conditions of some bridges, unfortunately, are in a critical condition due to exceeding durability period, and the management system of the bridge condition is not sufficient in Bhutan. This project aims to build an efficient and sustainable system on bridge management by introducing “Bridge Database” and “Technical Manual on Inspection/Diagnose of Bridges” and to develop human resources in Bhutan for maintain the management system in the future.