The Viana do Castelo City Hall, in partnership with the Department of Civil Engineering of the Engineering School of the University of Minho (DEC-EEUM), will implement a support system for the management of works of art in that municipality, encompassing 54 bridges and pontoons.
The service contract signing ceremony took place in the presence of the outgoing mayor of Vianna, José Maria Costa, the elected mayor of Vianna, Luís Nobre, the vice-rector of UMinho for Research and Innovation, Eugénio Campos Ferreira, the EEUM vice-president, António Vicente, the DEC director, Rui Ramos, and the DEC professor who will coordinate the work, José Campos e Matos.
In the next six months, the Department of Civil Engineering will make a field survey and proceed to the evaluation and inspection of the structures, according to their state of conservation and some risk factors. The municipality intends to inventory, inspect and create a support system to manage the works of art under its responsibility, and UMinho will develop and create this system.
For José Maria Costa, this project “is important for mobility and for safety”. In an initial phase, the road works of art will be subject to analysis, monitoring, and reporting for, in a next phase, “maintenance or even replacement.
Vice-rector Eugénio Campos Ferreira guaranteed that, through this partnership, “the experience and know-how” of the higher education institution will be put at the service of Viana do Castelo and the community. According to DEC-EEUM, the implementation of this system will allow that municipality to “take better care of and manage” the road structures in question.