Monitoring of highway bridges in areas under mining exploitation influence

The construction of a highway in the Silesian urban agglomeration, in the operation area of a number of coal mines, is a specific task. This is mainly because of the need to take into account in the design of the highway, bridges and all of accompanying facilities the necessity of protection against strong ground surface deformation. The safe use of highway bridges necessitates constant monitoring of their condition. Although monitoring is usually performed during the use of the bridge, it sometimes has to be implemented at an earlier stage. The situation that occurred during the construction of the Silesian segment of the A4 motorway may be defined as "interaction of highway construction with mining operations". Monitoring was performed in accordance with a programme developed earlier. That programme included indication of the type of measurements to be taken at each individual structure with the marking and arrangement of control points. The scope of observation was gradually expanded as construction operations proceeded.