BIM-Based Pavement Management Tool for Scheduling Urban Road Maintenance

Abstract

The latest advancements in road asphalt materials and construction technologies have increased the difficulty for engineers to select the appropriate pavement design solution with consideration of proper timing for maintenance planning. On the other hand, Building Information Modeling (BIM) tools allow practitioners to efficiently store and manage large amounts of data, supporting decision making in road asphalt pavement design and management. The present work focused on the elaboration of a BIM-based maintenance analysis tool for the specific evaluation of several condition indicators and the selection of proper maintenance solutions designed to include alternative materials and advanced recycling technologies. A traditional BIM workflow was integrated with additional user-defined property sets to investigate the need for maintenance at the present date and predict the degradation curve of the condition indicators through the least square interpolation of time series of data. The analysis tool also provided the selection of available pavement alternatives from a library of designed solutions based on their compliance with project-specific constraints (maximum budget, minimum useful life, and availability of secondary raw materials and in-place recycling technologies). The proposed BIM tool aims to be a practical and dynamic way to integrate maintenance planning considerations into road pavement design, encouraging the use of digital tools in the road industry and ultimately supporting a pavement maintenance decision-making process oriented towards a circular economy.

Building Information Modeling Uses and Complementary Technologies in Road Projects: A Systematic Review

“…Moreover, visual programming in Python streamlines data management. In asphalt pavements, BIM supports sustainable design selection and maintenance analysis, leading to informed decisions and a circular economy in the road industry [67]. This progress highlights the transformative impact of BIM toward more efficient practices in road engineering.…”

Empirical Models Investigation of Pavement Management for Advancing the Road's Planning Using Predictive Maintenance

“…The objectives of network-level management often have something to do with budgeting. These objectives include identifying the maintenance, rehabilitation, and rebuilding needs, figuring out the financial requirements, predicting the future effects of different funding alternatives, and prioritizing the maintenance tasks for the chosen funding option [9]. The optimal plan for maintenance measures will be determined at the project level, along with specific maintenance and rehabilitation therapies.…”

“…According to the perspective of [16], to provide a reliable transportation system, there should be a need for service quality and safety as well as in the rising aviation industry. A complex system like an airport requires frequent checks to ensure that the norms and regulations set by national and international competent control agencies are being followed [9]. To meet the set goals, all facilities must operate efficiently.…”

Systematic Literature Review of Open Infrastructure BIM

“…Tang et al [220] used an advanced visual programming language environment to integrate pavement structure analysis into 3D road design within BIM. With a similar approach, Oreto et al, in 2021, performed a decay analysis on a road pavement based on material and mixtures data, and developed a management tool for scheduling urban road maintenance [221]. In the context of maintenance and asset information management, Aziz et al [222] worked on integrating big data, sensors, and BIM for highway applications, while Kim et al [223] developed a BIM approach based on smart objects, from which information about scheduling and cost estimations could be automatically derived.…”