Building information modelling technologies for intelligent road engineering design, construction and digital twinning

Abstract

Roads form an integral part of civil infrastructure, providing safe and reliable access from a point of origin to a destination. With the rapid growth in population, urbanisation, and the pursuit of smart cities, the pressure on effective road design, construction, and maintenance is ever-increasing, with sustainability and innovation being at the focal point to derive better and more intelligent ways to accomplish this infrastructure requirement. With this influx of demand, traditional processes are put under strain, resulting in roads being designed inadequately, impacting the safety and service, exploration of minimal alternative routes due to time pressure or lack of information, material wastage affecting design sustainability and construction cost, and poor maintenance affecting safety and design life. With the progression in technology, building information modelling (BIM) is an intelligent 3D model-based process that gives architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) professionals the insight and tools to plan, design, construct and manage buildings and infrastructure more efficiently. BIM has been implemented, adopted, and mandated by many countries across the world, seen as an intelligent, innovative necessity for enhanced civil infrastructure design, construction, and maintenance. This leads to the question of BIM on civil infrastructure projects, with the focus being roads, and how would it compare to the traditional way of accomplishing road projects. In this regard, an in-depth investigation into the application and impact of BIM technologies across a typical road project had been conducted. This was achieved by describing the processes associated with a typical project when employing a traditional and BIM approach across 9 stages of the project lifecycle. This methodology effectively allowed for a detailed comparison between the two approaches, with the findings collated. The dissertation also expands on what is BIM, its levels, dimensions, benefits, its application on projects across various continents, its role in digital twinning and smart cities, its presence and development globally, its presence and development in Africa, as well as the hurdles experienced in its adoption and implementation and recommendations on how to overcome them. The conclusion arrived at was that BIM provides a plethora of advantages across the road project lifecycle, resulting in innovative, economical, and sustainable civil infrastructure, paving the way to enhanced operations and maintenance and digital twinning in the pursuit of smart cities, correlating with BIM being mandated by countries across the globe and various literature confirming its positive impact. The BIM approach outperformed the traditional approach across all stages of a typical road project lifecycle, conforming to the MacLeamy curve. The BIM technologies applied to derive and illustrate this conclusion were BIM technologies developed by Autodesk and the Devotech Group of Companies. It was also observed that whilst BIM has been around since the 1970s, BIM is still seen as a new concept, particularly in the civil infrastructure industry, and whilst professionals acknowledge its advantages, they are resistant to change, overwhelmed by how to become BIM ready, or do not know where to turn to for guidance, particularly in South Africa, Africa, and other developing countries. Other main challenges observed were those of education, training and upskilling, upfront cost, and the absence of a BIM mandate, as well as challenges specific to Africa were unpacked such as infrastructure gaps, skill gaps, digital division, and digital transformation.