AASHTO Journal - States Leveraging BIM & Digital Delivery for Safety and Cost Savings

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials hosted a knowledge session at its 2024 Annual Meeting that explored how Building Information Modeling (BIM) and digital delivery are transforming the design and construction of major transportation projects.

[Above photo by AASHTO]

Sponsored by Jacobs and moderated by Highways and Bridges Market Director in the Americas Mara Campbell, the session “Transforming Transportation: Leveraging BIM & Digital Delivery for Safety and Cost Savings” highlighted how federal agencies, state DOTs, and external stakeholders are collaborating to harness cutting-edge technologies. “We just want to talk about BIM and how it’s saving costs, how it’s helping us with safety, and how we can advance it and get it adopted maybe more robustly,” explained Campbell.

Jacobs Director of Digital Delivery Jason Harkless presented an outline of the progressive BIM levels – starting with 2-D Computer Aid-Design (CAD), moving up to developing 2-D plans to 3-D model and painting a picture of the future as technologies emerge. “I used to think that BIM was taking a 3D model and adding information because the ‘I’ is the key piece of what we’re talking about with BIM. I’ve come to understand it’s not that simple. It’s about the information flow between all the different pieces of a design or asset life cycle,” he stated.

Team Lead for Federal Highway Administration Infrastructure Analysis and Construction Katherine Petros discussed how federal funding plays a major role in supporting states. “We worked with the state DOTs and with industry to develop a national strategic roadmap to advance BIM for infrastructure,” said Petros. “That generated a BIM for an infrastructure pooled fund that has 21 state DOTs now participating. And there’s also a bridge pooled fund that has 25 states participating.”

Petros also highlighted AASHTO’s efforts to advance BIM, including passing a resolution to adopt a globally recognized open data exchange standard maintained by buildingSMART. She also noted the joint Technical Committee on Electronic Engineering Standards, which provides model guidance, and the creation of the Joint Technical Committee on Data Standardization that includes representation from committees on bridges, construction, design, performance management, and data analytics.

To showcase the state perspective, Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Director of Design Jason Pike and Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) Chief of Digital Delivery Selection Allen Melley discussed how new strategies and digital tools are being used to strengthen processes.

“I think the most exciting part about this whole thing is really just an amazing opportunity to evaluate all of our current processes. And again, at the end of the day, it’s really about conveying data at the different project lifecycles and having that available throughout the lifecycle,” said Pike.

Pike emphasized TxDOT’s dedicated workforce for digital delivery, including a full-time team focused on the digital delivery program and a large working group drawn from other divisions. He also noted the opportunity to eventually create digital twins—virtual models of physical objects, systems, or processes that use real-time data to monitor and analyze performance. In construction and infrastructure, digital twins can represent buildings, bridges, or transportation networks. “We’re also very excited about having a digital twin at some point down the road. That is just super exciting for us. There’s so many potential benefits there, lots we’ve identified, lots that we don’t even know about yet,” said Pike.

Melley shared that PennDOT launched its digital delivery journey in 2019 with the goal of using 3D technology to deliver construction projects and implement a model as a legal deliverable (MALD). “I’m happy to say that we do have our first MALD project out on the street in the hands of a contractor currently. So we met that goal about a year ahead of time,” he said.

With immense amounts of change, Melley highlighted the importance of communicating change management as well as communicating with stakeholders. Currently, PennDOT has 26 pilot programs in various stages. “Communication is key as we continue to advance this. It’s really breaking down that communication barrier between the various functional units between design, construction, asset management, and just having them talk and communicate because this is exactly what is going to be required to move forward.”

“This is a huge change management thing too, as big as I can remember in our agency. And so that’s going to be a huge challenge, is engaging early and often with all affected parties,” added Pike.

As technology in BIM and digital delivery evolves, state DOTs, the federal government, and industry stakeholders will continue collaborating to create a safer, more efficient, and streamlined future.

“I think right now we really have a lot of momentum behind us,” said Petros. “Everybody can just get together and decide what data it is that needs to transfer and flow throughout the asset life cycle. That’s where we get that increase in productivity and efficiency.”