Bridges in “Good” Condition: “Good” condition is defined by FHWA as: The minimum of the Deck, Superstructure, Substructure, or Culvert ratings is 7 or more. Source: FHWA Bridges & Structures Definitions
Bridges in “Poor” Condition: “Poor” condition is defined by FHWA as: The minimum of the Deck, Superstructure, Substructure, or Culvert ratings is 4 or less. Source: FHWA Bridges & Structures Definitions
Deck: The Deck is commonly associated with the driving surface of the bridge, which can be made of concrete, steel, or wood. It can also be the top of the structure that a vehicle would drive on if there were no fill on top of the structure, such as a box culvert or pipes with soil on top.
Deck Area: The Deck Area is calculated by multiplying the bridge length by the bridge width. The length will vary depending on what type of bridge-sized structure is being examined (culvert or span structure). The width will vary depending on the configuration of the culvert or span structure and their interactions with the headwalls or rails. KDOT’s method to determine the deck area is consistent with FHWA’s and the NBI Coding Guide’s definitions of Bridge Deck Length and Bridge Deck Width.
K-TRAN [Kansas Transportation Research and New-Developments Program]: K-TRAN is an ongoing cooperative and comprehensive research program that uses the academic and research resources of all three participating agencies, KDOT, University of Kansas, and Kansas State University. Major benefits of the program are expected to include high-quality transportation research targeted to Kansas Transportation needs, financial support to engineering students (to increase the pool of transportation professionals in Kansas), continuing education opportunities for agency personnel, enhanced quality of faculty, staff, and graduates in the transportation area, and increased ability to attract federal research resources for use in Kansas. Coupled with in-house research efforts, these programs will provide critical information to enable the agency to design, construct, and maintain the Kansas transportation system more efficiently. Source: Kansas Transportation Research and New – Developments Program Summary
Level of Service criteria: A description of the maintenance goal for various rating elements. Each rating element is inspected along randomly chosen road segments to determine whether the desired conditions for the rating element are being met and given an evaluation of “pass”, “fail”, or “not applicable”.
Maintenance Quality Assurance (MQA) Program: A new management tool to assist maintenance managers in prioritizing maintenance projects and resources (personnel, equipment, materials, and funding). The program involves physically inspecting randomly selected 0.1-mile sample segments using identified Level of Service (LOS) criteria for highway rating elements. Based upon the inspection results, the Level of Service values for the Kansas highway system at various organizational levels (State, District, Area, & Subarea) are then calculated.
Resurfacing: Any project with the intended purpose of rehabbing or resurfacing the upper most layer of pavement but may also include deeper pavement actions.