Bridge Engineering Center

About the research

As the number of large loads increases in South Dakota, the risk of collisions with bridges is also rising. Bridge strikes can lead to unexpected costs and safety hazards. The traveling public may experience significant consequences from these incidents, including fatal or severe injuries, detours and delays, and rerouting of heavy loads due to reduced structural capacity. To prevent bridge strikes, transportation agencies take measures ranging from passive signing of warnings or clearance heights and widths, to physical barriers placed prior to the bridge, to active warning systems that detect vehicle heights and widths, warn drivers via flashing beacons, digital message signs, or in-cab notifications, and alert the agency’s operations center. Other agencies have attempted to protect bridges with sacrificial energy-absorbing materials applied to the structure. The applicability and effectiveness of these measures depend on factors such as bridge characteristics, road
geometry, sight distance, traffic volume, travel speed, bypass opportunity, and others. Detecting actual bridge strikes is essential to incident response, assessing structural damage, initiating
repair, and identifying motor carriers financially responsible for damage.