Department of Sports, Taipei City Government

Taipei City’s outstanding bridge maintenance management has earned the highest honor from Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC), which has conducted evaluations of bridge maintenance and management operations across different municipalities.

The evaluations are carried out according to 2 criteria, namely inspection, and maintenance operations. Taipei City excelled in both categories, making it the top performer among the 6 major cities in Taiwan and an exemplary example in the country.

According to the Taipei City Government’s New Construction Office (NCO) of Public Works Department, there are 307 bridges under the administration of Taipei City, including 34 river-spanning bridges, 32 land bridges for vehicles and 241 general bridges. The agency has commissioned professional engineering consulting firms to inspect the safety of the aforementioned bridges according to the MOTC’s Road Maintenance Specifications.

In principle, the structure of each bridge in the city is inspected biennially. For more important bridges, the inspection frequency is increased to once a year. In addition, routine inspection and maintenance are conducted based on the age of the bridges: For bridges less than 15 years old (including elevated roads), inspection is conducted once every 7 days; for bridges of 15 to 30 years, they are inspected once every 3 days, and bridges older than 30 years are inspected daily.

Before and after every typhoon, flood control inspections are conducted on the river-spanning bridges, and after earthquakes above magnitude 3, quick safety inspections will be conducted. Recently, after a sea warning for Typhoon Lekima was issued, the NCO immediately notified the inspection consulting firm to carry put a pre-typhoon inspection. After the earthquake at 05:28 on August 8, 2019, the professional engineering consulting firm commissioned by the NCO immediately dispatched inspectors to conduct a quick inspection, and a bridge condition report was submitted within 2 hours declaring that the bridge was safe for traffic.

The NCO selects the bridges needing maintenance and the maintenance items based on the outcome of the annual inspection, routine inspection, and post-disaster inspection. Thereafter, the repairs are either implemented immediately, annually or in different stages depending on the risk level in order to ensure the safety of Taipei City’s bridges for road users. At the same time, regular bridge inspection education and training courses are conducted to improve the professionalism of bridge maintenance personnel.