The HOCHTIEF company for virtual construction, HOCHTIEF ViCon, has received a contract in Australia. Through the use of building information modeling (BIM), enabling computer-assisted monitoring and controlling of large-scale projects, it will support the continent's largest public transport project currently under construction and a priority infrastructure investment for the NSW Government, Sydney Metro Northwest – Australia’s first fully automated railway network.
The Operations, Trains and Systems Contract for the Sydney Metro Northwest project encompasses delivery of eight new metro stations, 23km of new track, 4,000 commuter parking spaces and Sydney’s new generation of fully automated metro trains to support the growing northwest region of the metropolis. Over the coming decades, an extra 200,000 people will move into the region taking its population above 600,000.
HOCHTIEF ViCon received the contract for the coming four years of construction from the Northwest Rapid Transit Consortium (NRT) comprising John Holland, CPB Contractors, MTR Corporation and UGL. Services for Sydney Metro Northwest will start in 2019 with a metro train every four minutes in the peak - that’s 15 trains an hour.
As part of its work HOCHTIEF ViCon will set up its internally developed Online Rail Information Systems (ORIS), among other things, ORIS is a web-based project management system that was specially conceived for the control and evaluation of the data material of railway projects in order to more efficiently control their realization and operation. A wide variety of data that can be used for reporting and analysis is being generated during the currently ongoing construction phase. All of the necessary information is recorded with the aid of mobile devices and can be accessed via the Internet with the aid of a 3D model. Over the course of the project several hundred thousand forms are expected to be sent via ORIS, linked with the 3D model, and evaluated and archived.
Dirk Schaper, Managing Director of HOCHTIEF ViCon, is excited about the new cooperation in Australia: "It is impressive to see that our experience and our collected knowledge can now be applied to the other end of the world. Our optimized BIM process will set new benchmarks for large-scale projects and I am convinced that ORIS will provide significant virtual support to the creation of a modern, high-class metro system."
Federal Minister for Transport and Digital Infrastructure Alexander Dobrindt wants to make BIM technology, with which HOCHTIEF is leading the way in Germany, mandatory for public calls for bids in the future. Building information modeling (BIM) is also currently being used in four pilot projects of the Federal Ministry for Transport and Digital Infrastructure in Germany - two road projects and two railway projects. HOCHTIEF is involved in one of the pilot projects: the construction of the Rastatt Tunnel.