Identifying Risks and Incorporating Them into Bridge Asset Management Planning 2026

October 27th, 2026

Departments of transportation (DOTs) manage extensive bridge inventories while facing increasing pressure from aging infrastructure, extreme weather events, and evolving federal requirements for risk-informed asset management. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) requires DOTs to develop and maintain Transportation Asset Management Plans (TAMPs) that address risk management for National Highway System (NHS) pavements and bridges. Although federal guidance emphasizes incorporating risk into asset management planning, practices for identifying, prioritizing, and integrating bridge-related risks vary widely among DOTs. These differences reflect variations in geographic hazards, network characteristics, funding constraints, institutional capacity, and data availability, making it difficult to standardize approaches for quantifying and incorporating risk into decision-making.