Make informed decisions on maintenance and renovation with InfraScan

Thema:: Infrastructure

13 November 2025

The Netherlands faces a huge task: renovating thousands of bridges, locks, tunnels and other civil structures. This challenge is complicated by the fact that information about their current condition and maintenance is scattered, often incomplete, and hard to find. To help asset managers substantiate their renovation decisions, TNO is developing a promising tool together with Rijkswaterstaat: InfraScan.

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Immediate insight into red flags in infrastructure

InfraScan aims to give Rijkswaterstaat, municipalities and provinces direct insight into the condition, risks, and performance of Dutch water infrastructure. Through a data-driven and explainable system that gathers fragmented information, organizes, and links it to potential risks.

This enables faster and well-founded renovation and replacement decisions. Martijn de Jong, senior advisor at Rijkswaterstaat, is enthusiastic: ‘You save an enormous amount of searching and immediately see the ‘red flags’ in your network.’

Making data work for you

Esra Bektaş, senior scientist specialist at TNO, started working with Martijn in the Knowledge Programme for Hydraulic Structures (KPNK), which focuses on planning the lifespan of locks and weirs.

Martijn: ‘We had so much data and wanted to explore how to make it work for us.’ Esra adds: ‘Especially to support decisions on replacement and renewal. That idea ultimately led to InfraScan, initially focusing on bridges and locks, with plans to expand to other assets.’

Looking at technical and functional aspects

The first step for Esra and Martijn was to map out the reasons for renewing bridges and locks to gain insights into the prioritization of measures: what needs attention, when, and why? They considered technical aspects as well as functional ones. For example: is a lock still wide enough for the vessels passing through?

Once they had a clear picture of the data needed for renovation or replacement decisions, they encountered a challenge: Esra: ‘The abundance of data was incomplete, not connected and stored over the years in different systems or as physical drawings in archives.’

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‘Adding logic to the data makes information rapidly usable for decision-makers.’

Esra Bektaş

Senior scientist specialist at TNO

The ‘Brain’ of InfraScan

Esra’s expertise lies in making fragmented data usable through computational models and semantic technology. Martijn provided all available digital data from Rijkswaterstaat, such as inspection reports and other relevant project information. Together with her team, Esra developed two models:

Ensures that the available data about assets becomes uniform and machine-readable, regardless of source. Esra calls this the ‘brain’ of InfraScan. It provides structure, connections and overview.

Performs automated calculations to help asset managers make well-founded decisions quickly. For example, identifying degradation patterns, functional loss, and end-of-life indications.

These two models form the core of InfraScan. Esra: ‘Adding logic to the data makes information rapidly usable for decision-makers. The tool is a great example of TNO’s role as a bridge between scientific knowledge and practical technology.’

‘InfraScan provides quick insight into the risks in our network, enabling us to better substantiate key decisions on measures.’

Martijn de Jong

Senior advisor at Rijkswaterstaat

Benefits for large public portfolios

Martijn: ‘InfraScan is much more than a clear dashboard with data. It immediately shows where the attention points and risks are in our network, enabling us to substantiate decisions on maintenance and renewal.

It also contributes to a new, data-driven asset management system we are currently developing.’ Other managers of large public portfolios, such as provinces and municipalities, can also benefit:

Integrated insight into the technical and functional condition of assets
Transparent justification of strategic choices and priorities
Data-driven, accurate and designed to work with existing applications
Support for critical investment decisions
Significant time and resource savings: from months of manual searching to just a few days

From proof of concept to broad applicability

The proof of concept for bridges and locks is promising. The goal is to develop a scalable solution for other structures, such as flood defences and tunnels, and to expand into other asset management processes, such as inspection planning. Another next step is linking

InfraScan directly to existing systems, eliminating manual data input. The team is also working on AI applications, for example, to convert physical reports and drawings into usable data.

True collaboration for better solutions

InfraScan provides insight into the condition of assets that are vital for the safety and resilience of the Netherlands. For Rijkswaterstaat, TNO is the obvious partner for this challenge. Martijn: ‘TNO understands data and combines a scientific approach with the expertise and creativity to develop innovative solutions that really work for us.’

Esra agrees: ‘The equality and dynamics in our collaboration are unique. We truly work together and are not afraid to adjust the scope along the way. This only improves the final solution.’

InfraScan is built on an open-source framework, is modular, and can be adapted to diverse portfolios. Contact TNO for more information about the current status of InfraScan and opportunities to collaborate.