800 national bridges go digital

TIRANA, Nov.20 – The Ministry of Transportation declared on Monday that the project for digitalizing data related to national bridges was complete. Easier access to the building data of these bridges will be possible from now on, despite the age of the bridges. Transportation Minister, Lulzim Basha, supervised some of the final stages of the project which is being realized thanks to the technical assistance provided under the European Union project. Basha entitled the final result “a central Archive of bridges, a true treasury of Albanian infrastructure, architecture, urban planning and culture.” This initiative takes part in the wider context of several programs that have been realized near the Archive of Buildings, for the protection of valuable data that being in paper format can be damaged in time. One similar project about geological data was financed previously by the OSCE. Basha assessed this project as a particularly valuable one for the future since the bridges need continuous maintenance and possessing the right data makes all the difference for a successful project. Digital data is not only safer but also quicker to obtain and can be used even in emergency situations.