Review of Vehicle Scanning Method for Bridges from 2004 to 2024

The vehicle scanning method (VSM), originally known as the indirect method, is an efficient method for bridge health monitoring that utilizes mainly the responses collected by the moving test vehicles. This method offers the advantage of mobility, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness as it requires only one or a few vibration sensors mounted on the test vehicle, eliminating the need for deployment of numerous sensors on the bridge. Since its initial proposal by Yang and co-workers in 2004, the VSM has gained intensive attention from researchers worldwide. Over the past two decades, significant progress has been made in various aspects of the VSM, including the identification of bridge frequencies, mode shapes, damping ratios, damages, and surface roughness, as well as its application to railways. Previously, some review papers and the book Vehicle Scanning Method for Bridges were published on the subject. However, research on the subject continues to boom at a speed that cannot be adequately by existing review papers or book, as judged by the fast-increasing number of relevant publications. In order to provide researchers with an overall understanding of the up-to-date researches on the VSM, a state-of-the-art review of the related research conducted worldwide is compiled in this paper. Comments and recommendations will be provided at appropriate points, and concluding remarks, including future research directions, will be presented at the end of the paper.