The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the state of the art in terms of Bridge Management Systems (BMS’s) and the application of risk-based approaches to the management of bridges. In this regard a review of international best practice in the development of BMS’s is presented along with the types of functionality which they can offer and the direction they are taking in state-of-the-art asset management. Significantly, the enhanced functionality of BMS’s is demonstrated to build upon existing/traditional information and data set structures to facilitate decision making around intervention strategies and budgeting. It is demonstrated that at their core, BMS’s make use of processes such as Markovian Processes (which can be homogenous or non-homogeneous) to predict condition as a function of time horizon. This has been the case for the past couple of decades with many international examples of successful implementation documented. Indeed, one such example is presented in an Irish context where the Markovian formulation is developed using available datasets. As such it is demonstrated that there are no operational barriers to implementing these processes formally to enhance BMS functionality and facilitate decision making around optimal intervention strategies and budgeting. Best practice internationally is demonstrated to be moving to asset lifecycle management which has risk evaluation at its core. Current examples are presented from international organisations to highlight this move. Risk based decision frameworks offer the possibility to work with the enhanced functionality of a BMS to provide for consideration of inspection frequencies for bridges/structures in different risk groups, and moreover for budget allocation decisions to be made based on risk from safety, economic, sustainability and resilience perspectives.