The majority of Ontario’s municipal bridges and culverts built in the 1950s and 1960s are quickly
approaching the end of their design life. Without the necessary funding, the declining condition of these
assets can result in structures with compromised safety and increased maintenance and rehabilitation
costs. Municipalities of all sizes are affected by this underinvestment and are required to do more with
less to address a $19.1B deficit.
In 1985, Ontario emerged as a leader in bridge safety with the introduction of the Ontario Structure
Inspection Manual (OSIM), which standardized detailed visual inspections for all structures over three
(3) meters in length. The creation of O.Reg. 104/97 Standards for Bridges that states the structural
integrity, safety and condition of every bridge shall be determined through the performance of at least
one (1) inspection every second calendar year under the direction of a professional engineer and in
accordance with OSIM.
The paper focuses on advancements in international best practices and decades of insight and
knowledge gained through evaluating thousands of structures that can be used to optimize the OSIM
process. Key opportunities for improvement include the following:
- Changing the OSIM cycle time inspection frequency based on the structure’s configuration, age and condition.
- How the structures are evaluated from cycle to cycle, limiting bias based on a prior knowledge gained from previous inspections.
- Optimizing inspection frequency to focus on elements that have the greatest impact on the Bridge Condition Index (BCI) and overall bridge safety.
- Identifying the factors that give greater insight into the structure’s performance and safety.
- Flagging bridge configurations and elements with known inherent vulnerabilities not necessarily connected to the bridge or element condition.
- Modernizing the methods of recording field data to better facilitate data maintenance and post-inspection analysis.
- Opportunities for improvement identified in the Ontario Auditor General’s 2021 report.
If adopted in a future OSIM edition, this effort would reform the way OSIM inspections are carried out,
reestablish Ontario as a leader in the sector, and provide greater detail and clarity on the condition and
safety of structures. This would allow for better asset management planning and safety improvements,
saving millions of dollars.