The Forth Road bridge was opened to traffic in 1964, and at the time of construction was the fourth longest span in the world. It now carries over 65,000 vehicles per day and is a key link in the Scottish transport network. The Forth Estuary Transport Authority (FETA), the owners and operators of the crossing, took the decision in 2003 to carry out a first internal inspection of both main cables. The paper describes that inspection, results and the evaluation of the current and predicted future strength of the cable. Following the inspection, a decision was taken to install an acoustic monitoring system and implement cable dehumidification and the current status of this work is also described