Despite extensive developments in the field of Acoustic Emission (AE) for monitoring fatigue cracks in steel structures, the implementation of AE systems for large-scale bridges is hindered by limitations associated with instrumentation costs and signal processing complexities. This paper sheds light on some of the most important challenges in the utilization of AE systems for steel bridge decks. These challenges are mainly related to the multi-modal character of guided waves, and the expensive installation of AE instrumentation. A quasi-beamforming solution which alleviates the above-mentioned challenges was introduced and successfully evaluated on a real-scale bridge segment in a laboratory environment. The solution was also implemented on a real bridge structure, demonstrating the benefit of the proposed configuration where the transducers are closely spaced for reduced installation costs.