Applying “Intelligent infrastructure” to civils assets

Remote Condition Monitoring (RCM) has traditionally been applied to signalling, track and traction assets as these have the most impact in immediate delays when a failure occurs. In more recent years, Civils assets such as bridges, tunnels and embankments have increasingly had RCM applied to reduce hazardous inspection tasks and provide condition data to implement smarter, targeted operation and maintenance plans. Coupled with these, climate change is also influencing how many key Civils assets are inspected and maintained as the frequency of extreme weather events increases. Operational restrictions such as Temporary Speed Restrictions (TSR) due to flooding and high wind conditions are becoming more widespread and often there is a need to carry out a special inspection following an abnormal weather event. To maximise the benefit of RCM the UK infrastructure provider has embarked on an initiative called "Intelligent Infrastructure". This is based on trying to predict and prevent a failure from occurring rather than waiting for failure and having to repair.