Pnrr, after Morandi Bridge, Plan focuses on digital for bridge safety

December 17, 2021

From Mims comes updated Guidelines for viaduct maintenance. Franchetti: "An algorithm to better plan interventions"

Pnrr, Giovannini triumphant: "All 2021 targets met"

The triumphant announcement came directly from the Minister of Sustainable Infrastructure and Mobility, Enrico Giovannini: "We are very pleased that all the targets for 2021 have already been achieved by our ministry, both of reforms and investments." We are of course talking about Pnrr, and on the reform side there was in particular one target to be achieved that remains very sensitive in relation to the safety of our travel and infrastructure: it is the updating of the Mims Guidelines on the classification, risk management and monitoring of bridges, viaducts and flyovers. A subject that has become unavoidably sensitive after the tragic Morandi bridge collapse in 2018.

The rationale of the measure is to extend the 2020 Guidelines to the entire national network in order to ensure homogeneity in the classification of the condition of bridges and viaducts. So, not only Anas or highway concessionaires, but also structures that belong to regions, provinces and municipalities. This is a decree that, in addition, allows for training actions to be initiated for the staff of decentralized entities, which often lack technicians and professionals in the workforce capable of carrying out the new control and risk assessment activities.. 

Pnrr, the digitization challenge for infrastructure management and maintenance

This is where digitization comes decisively into play as a frontier for a comprehensive and continuous assessment of the health of an infrastructure. An assessment that also becomes predictive and makes it possible to know the volume of interventions needed to keep the bridges in good condition throughout its life cycle. A decisive challenge on the safety front, but also on the economic, social and environmental sustainability of the structure. "In Italy there are an estimated 150,000 bridges; Anas alone is responsible for about 20,000 bridges. Structures that need constant monitoring and major maintenance programs. There is so much to be done, and the NRP has allocated 25 billion euros on infrastructure: it cannot be the panacea for all ills, but it will have to trigger a virtuous path of investments that serve to safeguard human lives and structures," explains engineer Paolo Franchetti, Ceo and chairman of Franchetti Spa, an Italian multinational software development and engineering design company for predictive maintenance of bridges and viaducts.

The company has designed and implemented in house an innovative infrastructure management information system to support decision-making and optimize road investments, a system that is based on an algorithm that calculates the best sequence of interventions to be carried out, the priority to be allocated to the different structures, the costs needed to carry out the interventions themselves and the time to be devoted to conservative restoration. "On this front," Franchetti concludes, "it is important for the public and private sectors, whose role is crucial, to work in partnership through appropriate consolidated or innovative tools, as the Minister of the Economy, Daniele Franco, also reminded recently, to enable entrepreneurs to make the best use of Pnrr tools.