After reunification, the upgrading of the German motorway network concentrated on eastern Germany for about 20 years. The West German network was left to deteriorate. Declining condition ratings and the fear of traffic-limiting structural deficiencies due to the exponential increase in HGV traffic gradually shifted the focus of transport policy back to the west and the motorway bridges, which were now on average 50 years old. The paper describes the gradual increase in knowledge about the recovery of hidden safety, which led to a shift from replacing bridges to upgrading them.
Eberhard Pelke (Wed,) studied this question.