Sveaskog is Sweden's largest road administrator with over 40 000 km of road. These roads pass over 917 bridges. They have all now been recently inspected and classified with respect to condition and maintenance needs.
"This was necessary for both Sveaskog and the general public.
We must have safe bridges and roads since they are used by extremely heavy vehicles," says Kurt Lundgren, Process manager at Sveaskog, who has led the inventory, and adds,
"Many of Sveaskog's roads are used by the forest industry and have to cope with vehicles weighing up to 60 tonnes, so they need to have the same standard as public trunk roads.
Since a structure passing over a waterway wider than two metres is classed as a bridge, large culverts are also included in the inventory. The majority of Sveaskog's bridges are actually large culverts, but there are also many concrete beam and iron beam bridges supporting wooded structures.
A long process
In the course of the inventory, which has taken Kurt Lundgren about two years to complete, he has been out and inspected all 917 bridges. As the road administrator, Sveaskog is obliged to know the status of its bridges. And since Sveaskog has the policy of having all its roads open to the general public, an inventory of the bridges was necessary.
They have been categorised according to their condition into four classes: Tk0 means that the bridge is fully functional and will be for a long time to come whereas Tk3 means that the bridge has significant shortcomings and is in need of immediate repair.
"An example of a simple, quick measure is that we have closed some bridges where alternative routes are available. In other cases we have reduced the maximum weight for some bridges to four tonnes. This cuts out the heavy traffic and makes the bridges only available to cars," says Karl-Åke Kjellberg, Road manager at Sveaskog.
New tool gives good control
Of the some 80 bridges that were judged to be in such poor condition that immediate work was needed, many have already been repaired. Work is underway on the others.
"A bridge is like a house: it must be maintained. I have now created a tool that enables Sveaskog to maintain its bridges in an optimal way," says Kurt Lundgren.
Comprehensive documentation covering all the bridges with both photographs and descriptions as well as their exact locations given by coordinates is now available. Today it is not a problem for Sveaskog to keep its bridges in good order.