Bridge Management

For 30 years, AASHTOWare Bridge Management (BrM) has been widely used as the primary bridge management software for transportation agencies across the United States and internationally. The software is owned and maintained by AASHTO, a nonprofit, nonpartisan association representing highway and transportation departments in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

The BrM software is a key product in the AASHTOWare software suite and has seen dramatic improvements since its initial release by Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) in 1990. As with all products in the AASHTOWare software suite, BrM is an enterprise software solution designed by transportation professionals for transportation professionals.

The latest release of the web-based software, BrM 6.6, now includes:

  • Program Funding Allocation Enhancements – These enhancements allow agencies to subdivide by project category, providing agencies with more granular results from their optimizations. 
  • Critical Findings Module – This module allows an agency to create and manage bridge-level Critical Findings, configure approval workflows for newly submitted Critical Findings, and report Critical Findings to configured FHWA contacts. In addition, agency administrators can view a dashboard of all Critical Findings, assign tasks (inspections, load ratings, etc.) to BrM users as part of resolving a Critical Finding, mark addressed Critical Findings as resolved, and create Work Candidates via Critical Finding Intermediate Actions. 
  • User Certifications – This module allows an agency to create and manage agency-level Experience Types (such as Bridge Inspection Experience), Certifications (such as 130055 Safety Inspection of In-Service Bridges), and Qualifications (such as Bridge Inspection Team Lead). Agencies can write SQL queries defining the combination of Experience Types and/or Certifications required for a given user to qualify for a Qualification, configure whether users may upload their own Experience Types and Certifications via the existing Profile page, and upload and manage user Experience Types and Certifications on user’s behalf via existing Admin > Security > Users task. In addition, agencies can review and approve user-submitted Certifications, configure email notifications for expiring Certifications, grant temporary Qualifications to users that have not submitted full documentation, and suspend existing Qualifications. 
  • Signs Module – The Signs module allows an agency to manage their Signs inventory and inspections within BrM and provides a designated list view for Signs assets, as well as Inventory and Inspection tasks. Similar to the Tunnels module within BrM, the Signs module is part of the continued evolution of BrM into an asset management platform. The module will leverage many of the existing tools and features already built into BrM and will allow agencies to configure certain parts of the module to inventory and inspect assets (including elements) in accordance with their agency policies.
  • Asset Element Condition Grid – The enhancements to the Asset Element Condition Grid control in Visual Form Editor provides support for existing ancillary asset types of Tunnel and Signs as well as any agency-created Ancillary Asset types.
  • Multimedia Enhancements – Allows an agency to define Multimedia Sub-Category values and to map those values to existing Category values to more granularly define the Category and Sub-Category of a given Multimedia file.

View the full release notes here.

Email brm@mayvue.com if you have questions about BrM 6.6.

Top 5 Things BrM Users Should Know

  1. BrM works off the shelf. Import your NBI/NBE files and go.
  2. Invest the time in setting up BrM correctly. Your agency will have meaningful and useful projects if time and resources are dedicated to setting up BrM properly.
  3. Support and training. Mayvue, the product’s consulting agency, can provide training courses, setup, and configuration of BrM, and assist in the installation of BrM.
  4. Validate often. Be sure to run validation on subsets of bridges throughout the year so that issues can be addressed before the submittal season.
  5. Help is always available! With a comprehensive user guide, technical manual, YouTube Channel, active user community, and growing knowledge base of articles, the answer is always just a click away.

View the Frequently Asked Questions section for more.

BrM Management and Oversight

AASHTO’s efforts are headed by a Task Force comprised of state bridge engineering and information technology professionals. This Task Force, partnered with Mayvue, manages the product on behalf of AASHTO and the user community in order to ensure that the continued development, maintenance, and support of the software meets the needs and requirements of state and local agencies, governmental organizations, and private consultants.

The objectives of the Task Force include:

  • Strategic planning for the continuous evolution of the product
  • Soliciting and facilitating the collection of feedback from the user community
  • Grooming and incorporating the user community’s feedback into product features
  • Creating yearly operating plans that identify specific deliverables in a given year
  • Overseeing the product development life cycle for feature releases
  • Ongoing collaboration with Mayvue across all phases of the product’s lifecycle

Active User Community

The continued success of the BrM product can be largely contributed to the ongoing involvement of its active user community. Licensed members of the BrM product participate in different committees that ensure the product remains innovative and high quality.

Annual User Group Meeting

AASHTO hosts an annual user group (BrMUG) meeting with the purpose of promoting the software through presentations, training sessions, and forums. Members represent their respective agencies by guiding and supporting the AASHTOWare BrM product. Member feedback is collected, organized, and provided back to the community enabling them to vote on future enhancements, ultimately steering the continued growth and development of the product. Visit the User Group page for more information.