INVESTIGATION OF PONTIS - A BRIDGE MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

In 1991 federal transportation legislation, Congress mandated that state departments of transportation develop and implement a comprehensive bridge management system (BMS). Related to this a rigorous BMS software package, PONTIS, was developed via federal contracting to industry. Since the national bridge inventory was to be based on PONTIS, many states elected to adopt it as their BMS. A major aspect was the need to introduce PONTIS to local and county bridge owners and prepare them for its implementation. PONTIS is a complex, exhaustive software package with extensive documentation. It greatly expands the bridge inspection process; requiring more detailed data, providing statistical and probabilistic capabilities and ability to perform "what if?" repair/replace scenarios as part of management decisions concerning entire local, county or state bridge inventories. A need existed to provide new users - particularly at the local and county level - a much-abbreviated introductory user's guide for PONTIS. The purpose was to enable ready familiarization with PONTIS capabilities and example cases of its use at various management levels. This research provided the needed introductory guide, titled "PONTIS Made S-I-M-P-L-E". A graduate student experienced in bridge inspection, but unfamiliar with PONTIS was the active researcher under faculty and Colorado Department of Transportation guidance. Draft versions of the document were trial run by representative intended users in a "hands-on" workshop. The identified PONTIS based issues and needs, and the process leading to the user-friendly end result are described in this report.

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