Abstract Manager

The Canadian Northern Ontario Railway Bridge is a railway plate girder bridge that spans the Rideau River, connecting the Merivale area to the Mooney's Bay neighbourhood in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Currently owned by the Canadian National Railway (the successor to the Canadian Northern Ontario Railway), the bridge supports various rail services, including the Via Rail Toronto–Ottawa Corridor passenger trains.   

 Niricson and DecisionWorks conducted the first of two concrete defect surveys on the Rideau River Railway Bridge, in May’2024. This survey aimed to provide a baseline analysis of the bridge's condition, focusing on the identification and quantification of visual defects and delamination. The data collection process involved capturing high-resolution RGB/optical images and acoustics signature points, which were subsequently processed using Niricson's proprietary defect detection and quantification software, AUTOSPEX® for bridge defects and DecisionWorks TrackSense software for rail defects. A second survey was done in October of 2024 to validate change detection capabilities in both platforms.   

 AUTOSPEX and TrackSense technology, encompassing advanced UAV equipment and proprietary software, provided a preliminary defect survey for Transport Canada Rideau River Railway Bridge which opens the door to transformative asset management practices. The data generated from this effort will be used in the following ways:    

• Design Maintenance Plans: The quantitative data generated through this study facilitates the design of meticulous and data-driven maintenance plans. These plans are essential for ensuring the safety of critical infrastructure assets.   

• Conduct Preventive/Predictive Maintenance: When deployed on a structure over time, this technology enables the implementation of preventive and predictive maintenance strategies. By tracking changes in asset condition repairs, engineers can understand how and where their assets are changing, helping them to proactively address issues, reducing the need for costly reactive repairs, and minimizing service disruptions.   

• Prioritize Rehabilitation/Maintenance Budgets: Understanding which assets are deteriorating most rapidly is paramount to allocating rehabilitation and maintenance budgets effectively. By applying this technology across the asset inventory, deterioration rates for assets can be obtained to understand which structures are deteriorating fastest and where asset owners need to spend their limited maintenance rehabilitation dollars to mitigate risks.   

This initiative can facilitate Transport Canada in digitizing its portfolio of assets and tracking asset conditions over time by implementing digital baseline technology for all new-build, pre-rehabilitation, and post-rehabilitation projects.