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Expert Systems
with Applications
Expert Systems with Applications 34 (2008) 3099–3106
www.elsevier.com/locate/eswa

An adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system for bridge risk assessment

a,* b
Ying-Ming Wang , Taha M.S. Elhag
a
Institute of Soft Science, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350002, PR China
b
School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, The University of Manchester, P.O. Box 88, Manchester M60 1QD, UK

Abstract

Bridge risks are often evaluated periodically so that the bridges with high risks can be maintained timely. This paper develops an
adaptive neuro-fuzzy system (ANFIS) using 506 bridge maintenance projects for bridge risk assessment, which can help Highways
Agency to determine the maintenance priority ranking of bridge structures more systematically, more efficiently and more economically
in comparison with the existing bridge risk assessment methodologies which require a large number of subjective judgments from bridge
experts to build the complicated nonlinear relationships between bridge risk score and risk ratings. The ANFIS proves to be very effective
in modelling bridge risks and performs better than artificial neural networks (ANN) and multiple regression analysis (MRA).
Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system; Bridge risk assessment; Artificial neural networks

1. Introduction However, the current aggregation process from risk rat-

According to the British Highways Agency (2004),
bridge risk refers to any event or hazard that could hinder
the achievement of business goals or the delivery of stake-
holder expectations and is defined as the product of the
likelihood and consequences of an event occurring. Risk
events associated with bridge maintenance activities
include deterioration, failure to meet the Agency’s obliga-
tions for freedom of movement on the network and failure
of a component, element or structure.
Bridge risks have to be assessed periodically so that
highly risky bridges can be maintained timely to make sure
of the safety of the public. Usually, bridge risks can be
assessed against different criteria such as safety, functional-
ity, sustainability and environment and characterized by
risk ratings such as high, medium, low or none. The risk rat-
ings on different criteria can then be aggregated into an
overall risk score, based on which the maintenance priority
of the bridge structure under evaluation can be determined.
Big risk score means high maintenance priority.
*
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: msymwang@hotmail.com (Y.-M. Wang).
ings to risk score employed by the Highways Agency
requires a large number of subjective judgments from
bridge experts such as ‘‘what’’ a maintenance project can
deliver, ‘‘how’’ and ‘‘when’’ they can be delivered, and so
on. Such an aggregation process proves to be highly subjec-
tive, costly and time-consuming. If the complicated nonlin-
ear relationships between the risk score and risk ratings can
be learned and memorized by some mathematical models,
then the relationships can be used to predict the risk scores
of bridge structures in the future. These models will obvi-
ously be of great benefit to the Highways Agency. With
these developed models, the Highways Agency can manage
and control bridge risks more easily than before and needs
no longer to spend time and costs in judging what benefits
and disbenefits each bridge maintenance project can deliver
because the complicated nonlinear relationships between
risk score and risk ratings have been learned and memorized
by the models from the past experiences and examples.
To learn the relationships, artificial neural networks
(ANN), multiple regression analysis (MRA) and the evi-
dential reasoning (ER) approach have all been tested using
506 bridge maintenance projects. Elhag and Wang (in
press) reveal that ANN has very strong capability of

0957-4174/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.eswa.2007.06.026
3100 Y.-M. Wang, T.M.S. Elhag / Expert Systems with Applications 34 (2008) 3099–3106

modelling bridge risks and the average fitting and testing For a first-order Sugeno fuzzy model (Sugeno, 1985), a
accuracies for bridge risk scores by ANN are both over typical rule set with four fuzzy if–then rules can be
96%. They also find that ANN outperforms MRA, but a expressed as
hybrid model, which combines ANN and MRA models,
produces better accuracies than any of the individually Rule 1: if x is A1 and y is B1, then f11 = p11x +
developed models. Wang and Elhag (2007) conduct a q11y + r11,
detailed comparison among ANN, MRA and a recently Rule 2: if x is A1 and y is B2, then f12 = p12x +
developed evidential reasoning (ER) approach. The com- q12y + r12,
parison covers not only the performances of the three alter- Rule 3: if x is A2 and y is B1, then f21 = p21x +
native methodologies in modelling bridge risks, but also q21y + r21,
their modelling mechanisms, merits and demerits. How- Rule 4: if x is A2 and y is B2, then f22 = p22x +
ever, adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), q22y + r22,
which has been widely used for different purposes such as
prediction (Bateni & Jeng, 2007; Bateni, Borghei, & Jeng, where A1, A2, B1 and B2 are the MFs for the inputs x and y,
2007; Chang & Chang, 2006; Firat & Güngör, 2007; Mous- respectively, pij, qij and rij (i, j = 1, 2) are consequent param-
avi, Ponnambalam, & Karray, 2007; Zaheeruddin & Gar- eters (Jang, 1993).
ima, 2006), knowledge discovery (Huang, Tsou, & Lee, As can be seen from Fig. 1, the architecture of a typical
2006), medical decision making and disease diagnosis ANFIS consists of five layers, which perform different
(Huang, Chen, & Huang, 2007; Polat & Günesß, 2006; Polat actions in the ANFIS and are detailed below.
et al., in press; Tokmakçi, Ünalan, Soyuer, & Öztürk, in
press), has not been tested yet. In this paper, we test Layer 1: All the nodes in this layer are adaptive nodes.
ANFIS and compare its performances with those of They generate membership grades of the inputs. The
ANN in modelling bridge risks. This will provide more outputs of this layer are given by
methodological comparisons for bridge risk assessment.
O1Ai ¼ lAi ðxÞ; i ¼ 1; 2;
The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 provides a
brief description of ANFIS. Section 3 develops an ANFIS O1Bj ¼ lBj ðyÞ; j ¼ 1; 2;
using 506 bridge maintenance projects and compares its
where x and y are crisp inputs, and Ai and Bj are fuzzy
performances with those of ANN. Conclusions are pre-
sets such as low, medium, high characterized by appro-
sented in Section 4.
priate MFs, which could be triangular, trapezoidal,
Gaussian functions or other shapes. In this study, the
2. Adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) generalized bell-shaped MFs defined below are utilized
1
ANFIS is a multilayer feed-forward network which uses lAi ðxÞ ¼  2bi ; i ¼ 1; 2;
xci
neural network learning algorithms and fuzzy reasoning to 1þ ai
map inputs into an output. It is a fuzzy inference system
1
(FIS) implemented in the framework of adaptive neural lBj ðyÞ ¼  2bj ; j ¼ 1; 2;
ycj
networks. Fig. 1 shows the architecture of a typical ANFIS 1þ aj
with two inputs, four rules and one output for the first-
order Sugeno fuzzy model, where each input is assumed where {ai, bi, ci} and {aj, bj, cj} are the parameters of the
to have two associated membership functions (MFs). MFs, governing the bell-shaped functions. Parameters

Layer 1 Layer 2 Layer 3 Layer 4 Layer 5

x y

W11 W11 W11 f11

A1 ∏ N
W12
x x y

W12 W12 f12

A2 ∏ N
x y ∑ z
W21 W21 f 21
B1 ∏ N
W21 x y
y
W22 W22 W22 f 22
B2 ∏ N

Fig. 1. ANFIS structure for a two-input Sugeno model with four rules.
 Y.-M. Wang, T.M.S. Elhag / Expert Systems with Applications 34 (2008) 3099–3106
in this layer are referred to as premise parameters or
antecedent parameters.
Layer 2: The nodes in this layer are fixed nodes labelled
Õ, indicating that they perform as a simple multiplier.
The outputs of this layer are represented as
O2ij ¼ W ij ¼ lAi ðxÞlBj ðyÞ; i; j ¼ 1; 2;
which represents the firing strength of each rule. The fir-
ing strength means the degree to which the antecedent
part of the rule is satisfied.
Layer 3: The nodes in this layer are also fixed nodes
labelled N, indicating that they play a normalization role
in the network. The outputs of this layer can be repre-
sented as
W ij
O3ij ¼ W ij ¼ ; i; j ¼ 1; 2;
W 11 þ W 12 þ W 21 þ W 22
which are called normalized firing strengths.
Layer 4: Each node in this layer is an adaptive node,
whose output is simply the product of the normalized
firing strength and a first-order polynomial (for a first-
order Sugeno model). Thus, the outputs of this layer
are given by
O4ij ¼ W ij fij ¼ W ij ðpij x þ qij y þ rij Þ; i; j ¼ 1; 2:
Parameters in this layer are referred to as consequent
parameters.
Layer 5:PThe single node in this layer is a fixed node
labelled , which computes the overall output as the
summation of all incoming signals, i.e.
2 X
X 2 2 X
X 2
z ¼ O51 ¼ W ij fij ¼ W ij ðpij x þ qij y þ rij Þ
i¼1 j¼1 i¼1 j¼1
2 X
X 2
¼ ½ðW ij xÞpij þ ðW ij yÞqij þ ðW ij Þrij ;
i¼1 j¼1
which is a linear combination of the consequent param-
eters when the values of the premise parameters are fixed.
It can be observed that the ANFIS architecture has two
adaptive layers: Layers 1 and 4. Layer 1 has modifiable
parameters {ai, bi, ci} and {aj, bj, cj} related to the input
MFs. Layer 4 has modifiable parameters {pij, qij, rij} per-
taining to the first-order polynomial. The task of the learn-
ing algorithm for this ANFIS architecture is to tune all the
modifiable parameters to make the ANFIS output match
the training data. Learning or adjusting these modifiable
parameters is a two-step process, which is known as the
hybrid learning algorithm. In the forward pass of the
hybrid learning algorithm, the premise parameters are hold
fixed, node outputs go forward until Layer 4 and the con-
sequent parameters are identified by the least squares
method. In the backward pass, the consequent parameters
are held fixed, the error signals propagate backward and
the premise parameters are updated by the gradient descent
method. The detailed algorithm and mathematical back-
3101
ground of the hybrid learning algorithm can be found in
Jang (1993).
3. Modelling bridge risks using ANFIS
This section presents the development of an ANFIS for
bridge risk assessment and tests its performance. Compar-
isons with ANN are also made.
3.1. Data description
The dataset used for developing an ANFIS was pro-
vided by the British Highways Agency. The dataset con-
tains 506 bridge maintenance projects and is randomly
split into two sample sets: training dataset with 390 projects
and testing dataset with 116 projects. Both the training and
testing datasets cover all levels and types of bridge risks.
Inputs to the ANFIS are the safety risk rating (SRR),
functionality risk rating (FRR), sustainability risk rating
(SURR), and environment risk rating (ERR) of the 506
bridge maintenance projects, which all range from 0 to 3
with 0 representing no risk, 1 low risk, 2 medium risk
and 3 high risk. Output to the ANFIS is the risk scores
(RSs) of the 506 bridge projects, which range from 5 to
99, as shown in Fig. 2.
3.2. Development of the ANFIS
With the 390 training dataset, we choose two general-
ized bell-shaped MFs for each of the four inputs to build
the ANFIS, which leads to 16 if–then rules containing
104 parameters to be learned. Note that it is inappropriate
to choose three or more MFs for each input because the
parameters needing to be learned in that case will be
greater than the number of training samples. Fig. 3 shows
the model structure of the ANFIS that is to be built for
bridge risk assessment in this study. The model structure
is implemented using the fuzzy logic toolbox of MATLAB
software package.
3.3. Performance analysis
Figs. 4 and 5 show the initial and final MFs before and
after 500 epochs of training (Epoch is set as 500 in this
study), from which it can be seen that significant modifica-
tions have been done to the shapes of initial MFs through
the learning process. The trained if–then rules are pre-
sented in Fig. 6, which can be used for prediction. For
example, if we change the values of the four inputs from
1.5 to 3, then we immediately get the new output value
of the ANFIS as 99. This is illustrated in Fig. 7.
The trained ANFIS is validated by the testing dataset.
Fig. 8 shows the testing errors for the testing dataset. For
convenience, the fitting errors for the training dataset are
also shown in Fig. 8, from which it can be observed that
except for three bridge structures (BSs), the fitting and test-
ing errors for all the other 503 BSs are all nearly zero. The
3102 Y.-M. Wang, T.M.S. Elhag / Expert Systems with Applications 34 (2008) 3099–3106

100
80

Risk score
60
40
20
0
0 30 60 90 120 150 180 210 240 270 300 330 360 390 420 450 480 510
Bridge maintenance project

Fig. 2. Bridge risk scores of 506 bridge maintenance projects.

Fig. 3. Model structure of the ANFIS for bridge risk assessment.

Fig. 4. The membership functions before training. Fig. 5. The membership functions after training.

three exceptional BSs are BS178, BS407 and BS446, whose 7.27% and 7.27%, respectively. It should not be expected
risk scores are 56, 97 and 97, respectively, but the fitted or that the ANFIS produce very good results for all the train-
predicted values for them by the ANFIS are 44, 104 and ing and testing samples particularly in the case that there
104. The relative errors for these three BSs are 20.99%, might be conflicting data in the training or testing dataset.
 Y.-M. Wang, T.M.S. Elhag / Expert Systems with Applications 34 (2008) 3099–3106 3103

Fig. 6. If–then rules after training.

Fig. 7. If–then rules for prediction by changing the values of inputs.

Looking into the training dataset, we find that both BS170
and BS178 have the same risk ratings: 1, 1, 1, 0 for SRR,
FRR, SURR, ERR, respectively, but different risk scores:
44 and 56. These two samples are obviously in conflict with
each other. Moreover, it is also found that BS177 and
BS178 have different risk ratings: (2, 1, 1, 1) and (1, 1, 1, 0),
but the same risk score of 56. These two samples also con-
flict with each other. It can be concluded that the risk score
of BS178 is very likely to be an outlier. The performance of
the developed ANFIS is in fact very good if the fitting error
of BS178 is not included. This can be seen clearly from
Fig. 8.
3104 Y.-M. Wang, T.M.S. Elhag / Expert Systems with Applications 34 (2008) 3099–3106

10
5

Error
0
-5
-10
0 30 60 90 120 150 180 210 240 270 300 330 360 390 420 450 480 510
Bridge maintenance project

Fig. 8. Fitting and testing errors of the 506 bridge maintenance projects by ANFIS.

3.4. Comparisons with ANN Table 1

Performances of ANFIS and ANN in modelling bridge risk scores
To compare the performances of the ANFIS and ANN, Model Training dataset Testing dataset
the following evaluation criteria are adopted. RMSE MAPE (%) R RMSE MAPE (%) R
Root mean squared error (RMSE): ANFIS 0.63 0.32 0.9995 0.99 0.68 0.9990
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ANN 1.54 3.24 0.9981 1.48 3.54 0.9982
u
u1 X N
RMSE ¼ t
2
ðAt  F t Þ ;
N t¼1
shows the fitting and testing errors for the 506 bridge main-
where At and Ft are actual (desired) and fitted (or pre- tenance projects obtained by the ANN. It is very clear from
dicted) values, respectively, and N is the number of training Table 1 and Figs. 8 and 10 that the ANFIS has smaller
or testing samples. RMSE and MAPE as well as bigger R for both the training
Mean absolute percentage error (MAPE): and testing datasets than the ANN model. In other words,
N   the ANFIS achieves better performances than the ANN
1 X  At  F t  model. Therefore, ANFIS is a good choice for modelling
MAPE ¼  100:
N t¼1  At  bridge risks. Moreover, ANN is a black box in nature
and its relationships between inputs and outputs are not
Correlation coefficient (R): easy to be interpreted, while ANFIS is transparent and
PN
t¼1 ðAt  AÞðF t  F Þ
its if–then rules are very easy to understand and interpret.
R ¼ qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Pn ffi; But the drawback of ANFIS is its limitation to the number
2 Pn 2
t¼1 ðAt  AÞ  t¼1 ðF t  F Þ of outputs. It can only model a single output.
PN PN
where A ¼ N1 t¼1 At and F ¼ N1 t¼1 F t are the average val-
ues of At and Ft over the training or testing dataset. The 3.5. Choice of MFs
smaller RMSE and MAPE and larger R mean better
performance. The ANFIS has been built so far using the generalized
According to Elhag and Wang (in press), the best ANN bell-shaped MFs and proves to perform well, but how
structure for the 506 bridge maintenance projects is a three- about using other-shaped MFs? In this section, we test
layer back propagation network with 10 hidden neurons, as three more MFs, which are triangular, trapezoidal and
shown in Fig. 9. The performances of the ANFIS and Gauss MFs. They are respectively defined as follows:
8
ANN in modelling bridge risks are presented in Table 1,
< ðx  aÞ=ðb  aÞ; a 6 x 6 b
>
where the two models are trained using the same training lA ðxÞ ¼ ðc  xÞ=ðc  bÞ; b 6 x 6 c ;
dataset and validated by the same testing dataset. Fig. 10 >
:
0; otherwise
8 xa
> ; a 6 x 6 b
>
> ba
< 1; b6x6c
Safety lA ðxÞ ¼ dx ;
>
> ; c6x6d
>
: dc
Functionality 0; otherwise
1
lA ðxÞ ¼ 2
:
Sustainability Risk Score 1 þ ððx  cÞ=aÞ
For these three different MFs, Figs. 11–13 show the fitting
Environment
and testing errors of the 506 bridge maintenance projects
by the ANFIS trained with the same dataset but different
MFs. It is easy to find that the generalized bell-shaped
Fig. 9. ANN architecture for bridge risk assessment. MFs are the best choice for modelling bridge risks because
 Y.-M. Wang, T.M.S. Elhag / Expert Systems with Applications 34 (2008) 3099–3106 3105

10
5

Error
0
-5
-10
0 30 60 90 120 150 180 210 240 270 300 330 360 390 420 450 480 510
Bridge maintenance project

Fig. 10. Fitting and testing errors of the 506 bridge maintenance projects by ANN.

10
5
Error

0
-5
-10
0 30 60 90 120 150 180 210 240 270 300 330 360 390 420 450 480 510
Bridge maintenance project

Fig. 11. Fitting and testing errors by the ANFIS with triangular membership functions.

10

0
Error

-10

-20
0 30 60 90 120 150 180 210 240 270 300 330 360 390 420 450 480 510
Bridge maintenance project

Fig. 12. Fitting and testing errors by the ANFIS with trapezoidal membership functions.

10
5
Error

0
-5
-10
-15
0 30 60 90 120 150 180 210 240 270 300 330 360 390 420 450 480 510
Bridge maintenance project

Fig. 13. Fitting and testing errors by the ANFIS with Gauss membership functions.

they lead to minimum fitting and testing errors when com-
pared with Figs. 11–13.
4. Conclusions
Modelling bridge risks is a challenging job facing High-
ways Agencies because good mathematical models can save
them a significant amount of cost and time. In this paper
we have developed an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference sys-
tem for bridge risk assessment. The developed ANFIS
learns the if–then rules between bridge risk scores and risk
ratings from the past bridge maintenance projects and
memorizes them for generalization and prediction. It has
been observed that ANFIS outperforms artificial neural
networks, which have been found in Elhag and Wang (in
press), Wang and Elhag (2007) to perform better than
3106 Y.-M. Wang, T.M.S. Elhag / Expert Systems with Applications 34 (2008) 3099–3106
multiple regression models. Differing from ANN, ANFIS is
transparent rather than a black box. Its if–then rules are
easy to understand and interpret. In summary, ANFIS is
a good choice and powerful tool for modelling bridge risks.
Acknowledgement
This research was supported by the UK Engineering and
Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) under the
Project No. GR/S66770/01.
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