Tapping into Potential: BIM for Sustainable Railway Infrastructure Development

In the realm of modern infrastructure development, the adoption of Building Information Modelling (BIM) has become increasingly crucial. It serves as a versatile tool that has revolutionized railway infrastructure development, providing efficiency, precision, and sustainability in design and planning. Railway engineers and planners utilize BIM to create detailed 3D models of entire railway infrastructures, facilitating better understanding and early identification of design clashes or conflicts.

This proactive approach helps prevent issues that could result in costly construction delays and revisions.

When I joined the Rail Baltica project in 2018 and we started our efforts for digital environmental creation by establishing Design Guideline (DG) BIM requirements, I could never have imagined how digital tools would evolve in 6 years. The transition from paper-based to digital documentation has become the norm, emphasizing the importance of structured data and clear sharing procedures for project advancement. While in 2018, there were still requests for paper-based documentation, nowadays, it is a rare occurrence to receive any paper documents or drawings from the project.

BIM as the Backbone of Rail Baltica's Digital Environment

Within the Rail Baltica project, BIM serves as the centralized foundation for Rail Baltica's digital environment. The Design Guideline BIM requirements underscore the significance of structured BIM data, particularly for Infrastructure Managers. The main objective of our Virtual Design Department (VDC) is to ensure the groundwork is laid for project success. The growth of information during design stage, from Value Engineering stage to the Detail Technical Design stages, is tremendous, and it continues to grow with each future implementation stage of the Rail Baltica project.

Documents, laser scanning data, drawings, BIM models and other related to project data might become overwhelming and chaotic if they are not coordinated or structured correctly.

The adoption of digital twin technology, creating virtual replicas of physical infrastructure assets, offers enhanced visualization, simulation, and management capabilities throughout the project lifecycle. This is crucial for infrastructure management, facilitating easier planning and future maintenance budgeting using available digital data.

Innovations in BIM technologies in construction and the potential for data sharing among various stakeholders are remarkable. Technologies are evolving rapidly, leading to the creation of diverse software solutions for semi-automated or fully automated processes in design, construction, and maintenance. In this regard, the Rail Baltica project is already on the right path with BIM data prepared for future technological integration.

The significance of using the correct file formats, allowing data to be readable not just for humans but also for machine-readable purposes, cannot be overstated.

Nowadays, the construction sector is evolving by integrating new machines capable of interpreting digital data and executing automated construction tasks. This automation is incredibly precise and important for the construction market, particularly given the shortage of skilled employees.

Environmental Sustainability Through BIM

These days, we think increasingly about the importance of environmental impact and the necessity to begin assessing carbon footprints or CO2 emissions for future infrastructure projects as well.

In this year's OpenBIM conference in Lyon, sustainability emerged as a central and critical topic in BIM presentations, with the importance of evaluation of CO2 and its management being highlighted by various companies and universities.

Impressive investigations and analyses by presenters demonstrated different possibilities to predict CO2 emissions or even forecast the future environmental impact, such as global warming, on infrastructure objects using BIM data.

It prompted me to consider how large infrastructure projects could undergo environmental impact assessment from a BIM perspective. Looking ahead, the long-term utilization of BIM data in the Rail Baltica project aims to establish a sustainable digital twin of the railway and its structural components – a challenging yet crucial objective that could form the basis for a practical digital model for environmental impact investigations. This model could facilitate various simulations to assess the future impact of CO2 emissions.

One proven method for reducing CO2 emissions during construction is through semi-automated or automated processes that enable control of machinery movement in the field. This optimization benefits not only economically but also improves work planning and eliminates issues arising from information flow discrepancies among stakeholders. For this reason, digital information from BIM models serves as a crucial input for the automated machinery works process.

Another prospective approach involves evaluating construction materials during the design phase using BIM models. This allows for faster simulation and assessment of critical objects' CO2 emissions, facilitating design adjustments and improvements before construction begins.

While this idea is still in the testing phase, being developed by other companies, I see its potential for future infrastructure projects.

Embracing Growth in the BIM Community

However remarkable digital inventions, analyses, and future perspectives may seem, many companies that have showcased impressive projects still encounter similar struggles as the Rail Baltica project. The need for the BIM community to grow is evident, but it should not be limited to siloed BIM team efforts. Instead, there should be a broader understanding of the necessity of BIM throughout the entire project implementation process. The importance of automation and AI is rapidly increasing, not only in design but also in construction adapting to these changes. These changes are challenging to keep up with but are essential. Challenges related to the lifecycle aspects of achieving environmentally friendly infrastructure projects still have a long way to go to realize necessary improvements for better future management with less impact on our living environment.