Remote monitoring of bridges and similar structures can serve a wide range of purposes,
providing continuous records of almost any variable in a structure’s condition. The purposes served include,
for example: assessment of a structure’s long-term behaviour, enabling its service life and life-cycle costs to
be optimised; condition assessment, enabling the serviceability of an existing structure at a particular point in
time to be confirmed; investigation of specific concerns which may arise during the life of a structure, enabling
remedial work, if necessary, to be defined; and safety monitoring, which can provide immediate notification
of any deterioration in the condition of a structure, where concern about such deterioration exists. Examples
of the use of monitoring systems to provide such benefits are presented.