Grants and Contracts Details
Description
Many believe the next sea change in efficiency and productivity for the highway industry will be
the “digitalization” of project management and delivery, the ability to seamlessly use digital
information across all project phases for visualization, automation, decision making, and
management. FHWA has invested over $35 million to support this, in the form of components of
the larger concept of Building Information Modeling (BIM) for Infrastructure. Examples of this
investment include 3D modeling, e-Construction, automated Machine Guidance (AMG), sUAS
(small drones), and BIM research. An FHWA 2019 Global Benchmarking study, which focused
on BIM, revealed that digitalization within the highway industry is an international priority.
For many years, digital design, construction, and management methods as components of BIM
have been improving delivery in the “vertical” building industry by creating efficiencies that
lower costs, generate fewer field “clashes,” and increase the speed of construction. Recently,
some of those technologies have made their way into civil infrastructure and transportation
projects and have been steadily gaining traction with both departments of transportation (DOTs)
and industry. For example, 3D models and e-Construction have gained significant momentum as
the design and construction components of BIM, in which traditional paper and pdf
documentation is replaced with digital information and tools to improve workflows and save
time and money. Some DOTs have taken further steps to incorporate such digital technologies
into their whole-enterprise business processes, moving toward the vision of BIM for life-cycle
data management. Other DOTs have not strayed far from traditional techniques, waiting to see
where digitalization makes sense and provides real benefits.
The objective of this synthesis is to document the use of advanced digital construction
management (ADC) systems by DOTs in the delivery of highway projects, from planning to
design to construction to maintenance and asset management. ADC includes components of BIM
such as e-Construction, 3D models, digital documentation, and geospatial tools that are working
to leverage digital efficiencies.
Status | Finished |
---|---|
Effective start/end date | 12/16/20 → 5/31/22 |
Funding
- Transportation Research Board of National Academy of Sciences: $45,000.00
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