Although detailed shell analysis is suitable to predict the ductile crack initiation life of steel members, such detailed method adds time expense and complexity. In order to simply predict the ductile crack initiation life of stiffened steel bridge piers, a total of 33 cases are simulated to carry out the parametric analyses. In the analysis, the effects of the width-to-thickness ratio, slenderness ratio, plate thickness and so on are considered. Both shell analyses and beam analyses about these 33 cases are conducted. The plastic strain and damage index obtained from shell and beam analyses are compared. The modified factor Bs is determined based on the predicted results obtained from both shell and beam analyses in order to simulate the strain concentration at the base corner of the steel bridge piers. Finally, three experimental results are employed to verify the validity of the proposed method in this study.