Keywords: life cycle assessment, metallic railway bridge, deck reconstruction, deck strengthening, painting, environmental impact, bridge maintenance.

For the past decade, the life cycle assessment (LCA) technique is increasingly applied in railway infrastructure for assessing environmental impacts. However, its application for old metallic railway bridges is still at its early development, despite their significant presence in the Europe network. The aim of this paper is to present a LCA study to assess the potential environmental impact arising from typical maintenance interventions carried out within the service life of an old metallic railway girder bridge, which is the most common form of construction within Europe. The investigated maintenance actions are: deck strengthening using steel plating, deck reconstruction by replacing the existing bridge superstructure with a new girder deck and recurring painting of the bridge. A LCA model is developed to assess the environmental impact of the above interventions over a service period of 60 year of the bridge. In addition, the most adverse activities for each intervention are identified and evaluated to determine the maintenance actions that produce the most significant environmental impacts. A case study, using a typical UK bridge, is presented to illustrate the methodology developed.

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