Tennessee Department of Transportation S Peer Review

Tennessee Department of Transportation’s peer review From TDOT spokeswoman Julie Oaks

COMMENDABLE PRACTICES "TDOT’s policies, procedures and standard operating practices for bridge inspection are exemplary and administered by qualified and conscientious personnel. The review team identified several commendable practices that have improved efficiency and effectiveness in administration of TDOT’s bridge inspection program and should be supported to ensure continued success and improvement."

These commendable practices are summarized below:

Commendable Practice 1: Electronic document management system (TRIMS and FileNet) that expedites follow-up to critical findings and updates to the database. Commendable Practice 2: All regular (routine) inspections for state and local owned bridges are performed by TDOT staff. Commendable Practice 3: Multiple levels of quality control review for 100% of reports. Commendable Practice 4: High quality and detailed regular (routine) inspection reports using Adobe Acrobat to compile inspection documentation. Many photos, sketches and notes. Commendable Practice 5: Good rapport between TDOT Region personnel and local agency personnel. Commendable Practice 6: Organizational structure has bridge inspection and repair sections closely aligned in Regions and Headquarters. Commendable Practice 7: Stream cross-sections are captured during each regular (routine) inspection. Commendable Practice 8: Utilization and customization of Scour Watch for monitoring scour critical bridges. Commendable Practice 9: Systematic process for identifying, prioritizing, completing and documenting repairs from inspections. Annually complete repairs on priority 1 and 2 lists and some on list 3 using State funds. Commendable Practice 10: Maintain list of inspection personnel; their education, certification, experience and training within the Structure Inventory and Appraisal (SI&A) section. Commendable Practice 11: Multiple levels of promotion opportunity within the inspection program and within inspection teams with seven (7) member teams. Commendable Practice 12: Utilization of pole mounted underwater video cameras for inspection of substructure elements. 6 OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT Recommendation 1: Further automate the load permitting process. TDOT Evaluators share the task of reviewing time consuming permits through monthly rotational permit duties. This impacts their responsibilities for bridge inspection report reviews, load rating evaluation and repair recommendation development. Although there is a Computerized Permit Issuance (CPI) system utilized by the Evaluators, further automation would reduce the amount of time spent on processing permits and allow more time to be dedicated to bridge inspection responsibilities and may allow time for Evaluators to perform field reviews of select bridges since they rarely have time to perform field reviews.

Recommendation 2: Enhance quality assurance procedures beyond the TDOT/FHWA annual review. Quality assurance of the bridge inspection program is limited to an annual field management review by the Manager of the TDOT Headquarters SI&A Section in company with bridge staff from the FHWA TN Division Office. Agency-wide QC/QA procedures should include: use of checklists to ensure uniformity and completeness; independent review and verification of the inspection data prior to finalizing the report and submitting data; periodic rotation of the inspection teams that inspect each bridge; establishment of a minimum number of bridges and inspection teams that will be field reviewed annually; and periodic bridge inspection refresher training.

Recommendation 3: Enhance training plans for Evaluators. Evaluators and inspectors do not typically have the opportunity to meet regularly together along with field inspection teams to discuss bridge inspection program procedures and issues. These types of regularly scheduled meetings can be considered training activities and often result in enhanced bridge inspection program consistency and quality.

Recommendation 4: Develop inspection skills and obtain equipment to further utilize state-of-the-practice non-destructive evaluation tools.

Recommendation 5: Standardize underwater inspection report formatting similar to what has been done for regular (routine) inspection reports.

Recommendation 6: Utilize sonar scan technologies to enhance the quality and safety of underwater inspections and reporting.

Recommendation 7: Further clarify criteria for critical findings. Inspectors did not have common criteria for what was considered a critical finding. For a critical finding, TDOT’s procedure is to prepare a “Closure Bridge Evaluation Report” (BER) with recommendations that must be completed before the bridge can be re-opened to traffic. However, during the interview process, there were mixed responses as to what conditions needed to exist to warrant a critical finding and did not only include situations where it would be necessary to close the bridge

Recommendation 8: Further clarify criteria for load rating re- evaluation. There was variability in their criteria for when a load rating/re-rating would be needed.

CONCLUSION The review team evaluated TDOT’s policies, procedures and standard operating practices used to administer the requirements of the National Bridge Inspection Standards (NBIS); interviewed TDOT personnel that are responsible for managing or performing bridge inspections, preparing reports and determining ratings; field reviewed six (6) bridges along with their respective inspection reports and historical electronic files, and interviewed local agency personnel that utilize the inspection report information.

Eight (8) opportunities for improvement were identified and recommendations were provided that could be implemented to enhance quality and improve effectiveness in performing and managing bridge inspection. Continued emphasis on the importance of the bridge inspection program and the implementation of the recommendations provided herein are expected to aid TDOT in providing safe and effective bridges that meet the needs of the traveling public and the requirements of the NBIS. Twelve (12) commendable practices were identified for sharing with other agencies. These practices improve efficiency and effectiveness in administration of TDOT’s bridge inspection program. These practices should be supported to ensure continued improvement and success. TDOT’s policies, procedures and standard operating practices for bridge inspection are exemplary and administered by qualified, conscientious and partner respected personnel that are dedicated to the delivery and quality improvement of their work.