Challenges, Benefits, and Current Practices of Smart Technologies in Transportation Projects Visualization

Date and Time: Friday: 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
Location: NAS 120

 

Natallia Mendes, Louisiana State University

PRESENTATION DESCRIPTION

The advance in technology brings new opportunities to the transportation sector to improve their process toward digitalization. The use of smart technologies such as Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Digital Twin (DT) allowed the modernization of processes through fast access and easy visualization of information. This is possible due to the connection between the virtual model and the physical world. However, transportation projects are extremely complex and have significant budgets, leading to the need for continuous improvement in quality control, conflict detection, risk management, and decision-making processes. This study aims to present an overview of the current practices, benefits, and challenges of BIM and DT through a survey of executives from the U.S infrastructure industry. The objective is to identify how overcoming these challenges helps improve the visualization of projects to achieve better management. Research data were collected through an online questionnaire with experts and professionals from the private and public sectors. Mixed methods, including quantitative and qualitative analysis, are used to determine if there are common best practices while using these emerging technologies in transportation projects. This study consists of two stages. In the first stage, an online pilot survey was developed to identify professionals’ perceptions of BIM and DT. Based on this preliminary survey, the second stage of the survey took place. During this last stage, the final questionnaire was designed to determine how these technologies can improve decision-making through visualization. The survey targeted to collect three different aspects of DT and BIM (i) the main difficulties in using them; (ii) how these technologies are changing the transportation sector and (iii) the main benefits of using them. While analyzing the second stage results, professionals mentioned that one of the main challenges is the paradigm shift and complexity of rethinking and redefining a 2D model to a 3D model. Furthermore, the survey results show that the most relevant aspect of how smart technologies are changing the transportation sector is the way how data is collected, processed, and shared. While the most positive impact cited were quality control improvement, rapid detection of conflicts, and improvements in decision-making, as presented in Figure 1. Most importantly, understanding the actual scenario of the use of smart technologies is fundamental to developing best practices to improve asset management and project visualization. The easy access to detailed information improves the ability to respond to changes and decision-making, resulting in the improvement of the project delivery process. Through these results, it was possible to identify not only how professionals in the infrastructure sector are dealing with these emerging technologies, but it was also possible to identify and point out the benefits of visualization to transportation projects. Some benefits include visualization of how the budget, schedule, and 3D model are impacted during project execution and improving the overall project quality by accurate reality capture, which is only possible due to these technologies. An example of the impacts that visual representation can have on transportation projects is shown in Figure 2.
Keywords: BIM, Digital Twin, Visualization

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY

Natallia Mendes is a Master’s Student at the Department of Construction Management at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She graduated as a civil engineer in Brazil and had almost three years of experience working on public works projects and supervising construction sites in a steel plant in her home country. Since January 2022, she is working with Dr. Carolina Resende as a graduate assistant. Her research is focused on identifying and understanding the panoramic situation of the application of Building Information Modeling and Digital Twin technologies in transportation infrastructure projects.

PRESENTATION FILE