# Comparison of Condition Rating Systems for Bridges in Three European Countries
## 6 Conclusions  
The aim of the present paper was to briefly illustrate various methodologies in the field of condition rating of bridges in Europe. Rating systems in Italy, Slovakia, and Portugal can be summarized as follows:  
* In Italy, the Italian government recently developed new guidelines for the risk classification, management, safety assessment and monitoring of existing bridges. These guidelines have been issued with the twofold aim of standardizing the assessment criteria in all country and prioritizing maintenance works. The contents of these guidelines can be divided into two main parts: the first one (to be applied to all bridges) deals with the determination of a bridge class of attention, while the second one is inherent to the safety assessment following the code verifications. The novelty of these guidelines is that for the determination of the class of attention, many risks are simultaneously considered: the structural and foundational risk, the seismic, the landslide risk, and the hydraulic risk. Hence, visual inspection for damage detection over the \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline \hline  & **Italy** & **Slovakia** & **Portugal** \\ \hline
**Multilevel approach** & & & \\
**Unified rating system for** & & & \\
**road and railway bridges** & & & \\
**Prioritization of bridges in** & & & \\
**the bridge management system** & Based on the \(CoA\) & Based on the structural state & Based on the structural state \\
**Number of levels/Classes** & 5 & 7 & 6 * \\
**describing structural state** & (From Low to High) & (From L./Flawless to VII./Emergency) & (From EC0/Good to EC5/Bad) \\
**Frequency of inspections** & Based on the \(CoA\) & Ordinary: every year & Regular: every 6 years for EC \(\leq\) 2 \\
**Most important component** & & & \\
**in the rating system** & Vulnerability class & Quantification of LCC factor & Inspections \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
* Eight levels if we consider NI (Not Inspected) and IC (Conditioned).  
\end{table} 
Table 10: Comparison of condition rating systems. structure must be integrated with technical document reviews and the collection of information regarding the hydrogeology of the site, as well as its seismicity. * In general, the Slovak rating system is based on two main approaches--a rating based on the classification of the state of the structural elements determined during visual inspection; this approach can insufficiently describe the real state of the bridge. The second, more detailed approach is based on the load-carrying capacity which is determined with consideration of current standard loads and deterioration of material properties. This methodology is more accurate, but also more time-consuming and cost-intensive. * In Portugal, a condition rating for bridges is primarily based on onsite inspections, allowing for a class related to the presence and severity of a given damage to be defined. Based on that condition rating, intervention actions and periodicity of inspections are defined within a decision-making process for management of these assets. This framework is therefore suitable within the perspective of an asset owner/manager, but would benefit from the analysis of evolution of the performance of the asset as to predict future maintenance and intervention actions with a more optimized use of resources. To sum up, the unification of bridge management systems in Europe will become increasingly important. A common condition rating system should be simple and comprehensive for all engineers across the continent and should reflect the needs and challenges including climate changes. One of the actual main concerns is the fact that each European country has his own rating system and, very often, these codes are written in the local language, so a consultation of them is very difficult by foreign users. The classification of bridges into several levels or classes is a simple approach and is suitable to describe their current structural and healthy state.