The second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP2) aims to provide a comprehensive set of products, procedures, and best practices to help the transportation community enhance the productivity, efficiency, safety, and improve the reliability of the national highway system in the US. As part of this national program, project ‘R19A Service Life Design of Bridges’ aimed to provide practical training and design tools to transportation agencies to implement a state-of-the-art service life design methodology. North America currently has a large and costly inventory of infrastructure that either has or is prematurely reaching the end of its useful life; this project addressed the critical need for future infrastructure to be designed with an extended service life that enhances structural safety and results in significant long-term cost savings.

The project was completed by Jacobs Engineering Group (prime consultant) and COWI North America (sub-consultant), who joined forces to form a Subject Matter Expert team (SME), with the majority of the SME team being comprised of COWI specialists from Vancouver, BC.

COWI SME team members achieved the project goals and expectations by providing cutting-edge technical knowledge, expertise, and training to 30 transportation agencies. COWI developed the majority of the training materials including design tools and examples, reports, and constructions specifications, workshops, seminars, and conferences where the goal was to teach service life design and provide practical tools and knowledge that engineers can readily implement. All materials developed are publicly available on the SHRP2 website for the benefit of the transportation community.