Rutgers CAIT is working with USDOT to develop the Advanced Bridge Technology Clearinghouse — a digital “one-stop-shop” for technically robust information on the latest innovations in bridge engineering.
As the nation’s infrastructure ages and faces additional stresses from increased traffic loads, there is an urgent need for innovative solutions that can ensure the long-term safety and performance of these structures. The Advanced Bridge Technology Clearinghouse (ABTC) will provide the bridge industry with a platform for efficiently identifying and promoting new bridge technologies from paper into practice.
The platform will use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to rapidly scan and evaluate extensive bridge data and publications. In addition, a team of industry and academic experts has been assembled to manage the platform — manually checking all database entries, ensuring accurate technology evaluations, and providing tailored responses to user questions.
Once developed, ABTC will be able to provide transportation professionals with AI-driven insights, well-defined performance metrics, and rigorous safety evaluations of advanced bridge technologies that can enhance critical activities from construction and design to monitoring and maintenance.
Industry Snapshot
There are more than 600,000 bridges across the United States that play a critical role in supporting the nation’s economy by connecting regions and cities, workers to jobs, goods to markets, and people to essential services.
Currently, 42% of all U.S. bridges are 40+ years old, and nearly 8% are structurally deficient according to ASCE’s Infrastructure Report Card. It is estimated that 178 million trips are taken across these structurally deficient bridges every day.
Aging infrastructure and traffic growth demand urgent innovation to ensure that the nation’s bridges are maintained in a state of good repair and continue to perform. Implementation of new technologies has been a formidable challenge for the industry, as current bridge information is spread over many entities such as DOTs, municipalities, contractors, inspectors, reports, and publications, and is not readily available from one source.
Through a convergence of expert collaboration, rigorous evaluation, and proactive outreach, ABTC aspires to address this challenge by serving as the hub for bridge technology and best practices.
Meet the Team
The ABTC is supported through a cooperative agreement with the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT).
The Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation (CAIT), within the School of Engineering at Rutgers University, develops practical tools and processes that can be implemented as mainstream tools in the hands of transportation professionals solving real-world problems right now. CAIT research focuses on assessing and monitoring the health of bridges, roads, and pipelines; creating revolutionary technologies, materials, and tools; formulating strategies to prolong the service life of infrastructure; and training the current and future workforce.
- PI — Nenad Gucunski, PhD
- Co-PI & PM — Maurizio Morgese, PhD
- Co-PI — Jessica Cheng, PhD
- Academic Leads
- Ali Maher, PhD
- Jie Gong, PhD
- John Braley, PhD
- Vassilina Demetracopoulou, PhD
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