BIM and GIS data integration: a novel approach of technical/environmental decision-making process in transport Infrastructure design

The European Directive 2014/24/EU and its recent Italian transposition law DM 560/2017 encourage an extensive use of BIM-based practices in transport infrastructure design. Therefore, a shift from the traditional design approach towards a shared and highly integrated model, capable of including the various design phases along with economic, operational and environmental concerns, is observed. In such a framework, this work evaluates the benefits returning from the integration between geospatially-referenced data and the BIM models for a more aware design approach. The major aim of this study is to underline the potential of an interoperable and shared model supplemented by GIS data, in minimizing or definitely removing the possible conflicts that typically arise between the infrastructure design and environmental constraints. Particularly, thanks to both the simultaneous assessment of each environmental component and the evaluation of the different project configurations, this methodology can provide an integrated technical/environmental overview of the design. As a result, it allows for immediately verifying the project to comply with the national minimum environmental criteria, which are mandatory for contractors according to the Italian environmental law n° 221/2015 and the new Italian Public Procurement Code. The proposed approach was finally tested on an airport infrastructure. Preliminary results have shown viability of the data management model for supporting designer’s choices in the various project phases, thereby proving this methodology to be worthy for implementation in infrastructure design procedures.