PSI - Issue 44

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E. Renzi et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 44 (2023) 355–362 E. Renzi et al./ Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2022) 000 – 000

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Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the XIX ANIDIS Conference, Seismic Engineering in Italy Keywords: Management Systems, Seismic Risk, Network Resilience

1. Introduction In Italy, the reference legislation for the road and motorway infrastructures safety management has recently undergone very important updates, aimed, among other things, at providing homogeneous tools for assessing the asset safety performance and the consequent possible adoption of mitigating actions (referring to the acceptability of the risk), as well as for the definition of the maintenance plans, by the numerous road and motorway network managers. In particular, the main provisions, in terms of knowledge and assessment of the state of bridges and tunnels and in terms of adoption of risk mitigating actions and of the carrying out of the (structural) maintenance interventions for existing bridges, are provided by the “Guidelines for the risk Management of Existing Bridges” (hereinafter GMEB), issued by the Superior Council of Public Works and adopted with Ministerial Decree n. 578 issued in 2020. Similar provisions, currently on the verge of being issued, concern other main assets, i.e. road tunnels. The GMEB, in particular, clarify the relevance of the knowledge of the peculiar characteristics of the structure and the construction site (in terms of structural schemes and types, design standard, type of soil, etc.), as well as the importance of the "visual inspections" (which identify the external state of conservation of the bridges in relation to the observed defects and criticalities), in order to classify the risk levels (i.e. the so-called "Attention Classes") of the existing structures (bridges and viaducts with spans longer than 6 m) distributed along the entire national network. Furthermore, in order to recover the operational and regulatory gap existing for the safety management of road infrastructures as compared to the management methods used for railway and airport infrastructures (thoroughly regulated at international level), the “National Safety Agency for Railways and Roads” (ANSFISA), according to the provisions of Law Decree no.109 issued on 2018 (and its subsequent amendments/updates) and to the aforementioned GMEB, has begun a complex activity for the definition of a series of regulatory documents. The purpose of such an activity is to identify useful tools to guide and homogenize the setting of processes upon which the management of national road/motorway infrastructures must be based. In this context, ANSFISA has recently adopted (with the Decree of the Director of the Agency issued on April 22, 2022) the "Guidelines for the implementation, certification and evaluation of performance of the Safety Management Systems (SGS-ISA Guidelines) for the verification and maintenance of road and motorway infrastructures", which define the reference tools for the adoption, by road operators, of the Integrated SMS proposed by the Agency (which will be represented in more detail below). This constitutes a fundamental step towards for the paradigm in the management of road infrastructure safety, which so far has shown an important gap compared to what has been implemented for the other transportation modes (i.e. air and rail). In the proposed Integrated Risk Management System, the aspects related to seismic events, which in Italy, as is well known, have determined various criticalities (due to the vulnerability of buildings), have been considered together with the other events that determine a risk. In this sense, it is crucial to consider the aspects and criticalities related to the: vulnerability, and more generally to the seismic risk, which characterizes the structures that constitute the national road infrastructure; management of the post-seismic emergency phase as well as, more generally, to the need to analyze and improve the resilience, intended as the response capacity of the road network to an important perturbation event. 2. The Italian Guidelines for the Risk Management of Existing Bridges In Italy, the toll roads are managed by private and public companies based on concession contracts and agreements with the Italian Government. According to these agreements the road infrastructure managers are fully responsible for the infrastructure maintenance, under every point of view but with specific regard to the safety performance, as also enforced by the Italian “road traffic code” (Legi slative Decree n. 285/1992).