Infrastructure management systems (IMS) are increasingly being applied in the development of maintenance strategies of transport facilities. FEDRO (the Swiss Federal Roads Office), for example, has now developed the fourth version of the KUBA software application, which is used to programme medium- to long-term maintenance work on engineering structures such as bridges on the motorway network. Similarly, the SBB (Swiss Federal Railways) is developing its own comprehensive, dedicated management system. Such systems are currently geared to the minimisation of operating costs, i.e. those costs borne by the owner. At the same time, the exclusive focus on technical criteria in defining the state of infrastructure should not allow conditions to arise in which unacceptable impacts on users and the environment become likely. As yet, no allowance is made for any such effects, the scope of which may be subsumed under the concept of “vulnerability”.