Infrastructure in Germany: Every tenth bridge is in poor condition

There are currently around 40,000 bridges in the network of German federal trunk roads. And it is not just since the flood disaster that many of the structures have been more bad than good: As the Federal Statistical Office announced on Wednesday, more than every tenth bridge in Germany has serious defects. In 9.9 percent of the cases, the Federal Highway Research Institute awarded the grade “insufficient”, and the condition of 1.6 percent of German bridges is even considered “unsatisfactory”. Around three quarters of the bridges are therefore in a satisfactory or sufficient condition, only around 13 percent of all bridges were classified as very good or well maintained. All figures relate to the beginning of September 2020.

Meanwhile, rising construction costs not only threaten the dream of owning a home, building owners also have to dig deeper and deeper into their pockets for the street in front of it. According to the figures from the Federal Statistical Office, the prices for road construction work in Germany increased by around 29 percent in 2020 compared to 2011. When it comes to bridges, construction was almost a quarter more expensive (around 24 percent). The development of prices can be illustrated using construction price indices

, which relate to the prices of representative projects.

The state is also spending more and more money on the maintenance and expansion of roads and bridges. According to the Federal Statistical Office, the total public budget, consisting of the federal government, states and municipalities, spent around 14.2 billion euros on road construction in 2020, which is a nominal increase of around 40 percent compared to 2011 (10.1 billion euros ). In the same period, the share of road construction spending in total government spending fell slightly, from 0.9 percent in 2011 to 0.8 percent in 2020.

According to the Federal Statistical Office, the current value of roads in Germany has risen by around a quarter in the past ten years due to higher investments. At the end of 2020, the company's assets amounted to around 394.2 billion euros. The Federal Statistical Office puts the loss in value as a result of heavy use of the roads, aging processes and extreme weather such as heat and heavy rain at 14.8 billion, around 30 percent more than ten years ago. At that time, the annual depreciation volume was 11.4 billion euros.

The quarterly cash statistics of the Federal Statistical Office record the expenditure and income of the general public budget broken down by type and construction expenditure broken down by task area. The road construction measures include bridge and tunnel construction measures. The condition grades awarded for the bridges, for example, are the results of regular structural inspections. The decisive factor is individual damage or defects, which the inspectors assess with regard to their effects on stability, traffic safety and durability.