Rail Industry Focus

The next dimension in project management

The Reading upgrade project is further proving the use of 4D modelling as a project management tool across multiple disciplines, and showing how augmented reality might soon be used to revolutionise rail engineering and construction. RTM’s Adam Hewitt spent some time with the Engineering Data Management Team at Reading to find out more, and heard from head of the team, Fergal Malone.

4D modelling and its applications to project management have come on enormously since its first deployments in the 1990s on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link project and latterly on the WCML upgrade.

Teams are now in place on the Reading station and track upgrade, on Crossrail, and on Thameslink, making use of the latest technology to truly change how engineers and construction workers do their jobs.

Fergal Malone, Engineering Data Manager at the Reading upgrade since May 2010, and a veteran of the CTRL and WCML implementations, told RTM that the potential uses of the tool are “mindblowing”, but notes that for engineers and construction teams, the “wow factor” in seeing a project come to life in stages on screen is not enough.

He said: “The wow quickly fades unless it’s got functionality that lets you see exactly how it’s going to help.”

But the team has plenty of examples of how they can help – including on site access, possession requirements, isolation requirements, highways access, protection arrangements, health and safety arrangements, risk management and environmental considerations to name just some.

What is 4D modelling?

4D has gradually come to be used as a catch-all shorthand for all sorts of modelling which should more accurately be described as 2D or 3D. The fourth dimension, of course, is time – meaning a project can be planned, tracked and then evaluated in detailed stages, simulated graphically day-by-day or hour-by-hour, and potential clashes can be detected early, both in terms of clashes between different designs relating to the same project, and how contractors may physically clash onsite at particular times.

Being able to actually see what will be where and when, represented as a graphical simulation, is a great tool to do this.

Malone explained: “At a high level, the purpose of 4D is to tie graphical information into the project plan. That’s the traditional overview, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg. “The key thing is starting off at the earliest GRIP stage you possibly can, bearing in mind how quickly you’re going to start receiving designs from contractors.

“The ideal, as we’re trying to set it up here and within Crossrail, is to take away the 3D modelling from this team, and to have all of our 3D work done by our own suppliers, and us co-ordinating the information and turning it into the 4D plan.”

That ideal remains some way off, he explained, due to the lack of specialist inhouse design teams adept at using the rail-specific project management and CAD tools at most Network Rail contractors and suppliers.

He explained: “Finding designers who can supply it in the format we need in can be a problem. We work primarily in MicroStation, which is normal for the rail industry, while a lot of the rest of the world’s industries use AutoCAD, and that’s a problem.”

Graphical visualisation

But once the 3D models are available, that’s when the team’s work really begins, as each element is linked to the main database and project plan.

Malone said: “Linking the graphics to the plan is a manual process to begin with, but as the programme changes, the line items will remain the same, so any changes to the plan will be reflected in it. “The entire Reading project – the station, tracks, depot, viaduct – can all be seen on one model, at any geographical point and any point in time.

“There are individual models for each major section too, simply because of the sheer volume of graphical information we’re working with, but we have a file taking all of those 4D models and putting them into one.”

When the 4D process was used on previous projects, like CTRL and the WCML upgrade, not everyone working in construction saw the point, Malone said.

He explained: “A lot of it was derived from people having too high expectations. We need people to think about what they need it for. The wow factor fades, as I’ve said; ‘I’ve seen what it does, how the project’s going to develop over time, but how has that helped?’

“That’s what we’re now doing here, looking at it not just from an engineering point of view, but from a construction point of view. The guy on the ground knows how to put a track in place, so why does he need to see it animated? We want to concentrate on the things that are most useful for him.

“Now, having seen it working almost from the very beginning here, the people who have gone through those earlier projects have come almost to expect it to be in place, so we’ve seen a change in attitude, and it’s become integral.”

The models can also be made available to contractors through careful use of permissions, and in many different formats, since not all of them would have the right sort of software to view it normally.

Malone said: “It’s all tightly controlled.” He said that although 4D modelling is currently only used on the biggest construction projects, that could change: “I don’t see why this technology and software can’t be used elsewhere. It’s a great tool.”

The 4D model can also be tied in with visualisations of project racecards, the generic terms for the six-week look ahead at construction works that take place.

He said: “You can see where people are going to be working, the access routes they need to use, everything.”

The fifth dimension

4D is not the final stage in the evolution of modelling software and project management, with a lot of the talk now being about 5D. The fifth ‘dimension’ in this case is not really a dimension at all, but is rather to do with quantity measurement and cost specifications.

Malone said: “There’s not a huge leap between what we do already and being able to quantify everything as part of it, because we’re doing everything to scale, and putting everything in its correct geospatial location in the model, so we know exactly what quantities we’re using and can calculate volumes very quickly. We’re working with the estimating team with a view to giving them all of the quantities they want. That’s happening now: it’s called BIM, or building information modelling.

“With that in mind, we can also produce ground modelling calculations. For instance, we’ve got the viaduct to be built at Reading; we’ve got to lower the ground, and we can calculate how much spoil needs to be removed to do that. Similarly, the new depot means moving huge amounts of earth.”

Data and visualisations in project management

All sorts of issues relevant to design and construction projects have fallen within the data team’s scope: from pedestrian flows to flood management, and buried services to planning application visualisations, and they have aspirations to apply their tools to things like radio coverage and train timetabling.

The team produces countless presentations, animations and safety videos, accumulating all of the files and 3D data required and sometimes outsourcing it to third parties.

But the team is involved in interdisciplinary

co-ordination and reviews on a weekly basis. Malone said: “We sit in with the engineering and construction teams and all of the contractors, go through their designs, make sure they work, and we get engaged in the constructability reviews and the ‘T-minus’ reviews.”

With the buried services – cables and pipes and so on – the core data is received annually, but in multiple formats. The team turns all of that into a single CAD file for distribution to contractors.

Malone said: “It’s a huge manual process for all of us, on an annual basis, it takes two or three months to assimilate all of that information. There’s a huge responsibility there to avoid cable strikes and gas strikes, but the onus is still on the contractor to make sure there’s nothing there. There is a responsibility on them as well and they have to do their own double-checks on site, and any information they find is tracked back to us as well.”

Recently, the team has also become involved with flood risk assessments, due to Environment Agency requirements for Network Rail to determine what impact the Reading works will have on the environment and on flooding.

The team is also involved in helping with planning applications, producing graphics and images to show planners and the public what things will really look like.

Malone explained: “We get a lot of call to do things like that, and when you’re looking at a depot that’s two miles long, a viaduct that’s a mile-and-a-half long and 10 metres high in places, environmentally there’s a big impact, and Reading Borough Council are hot on our heels to account for it all.

“We maintain photographic records for the Reading project as well, which we hope to link to the relevant locations geospatially within ProjectWise, so we can see where photos were taken at any given time.”

Radio system coverage he said, remained “for the future”, but could have great potential in modelling where black holes in radio coverage emerge.

Train timetable management is another aspiration. He said: “We might consider that in the future on other projects, simulating train movements through stations.

“With the number of platforms we’re putting in, there are periods when other platforms are closed and taken out of use, so at that point it would be very helpful for the TOC and the station management to understand how the timetable gets affected and how they might want to plan diversions during construction works.”

Pedestrian flow, especially monitoring potential congestion ‘hotspots’ during construction works at the station, is something else the team is becoming involved with.

The team is already evaluating red zones during possessions, looking at how the work site will appear in reality to help the planners in advance of work starting. Malone spoke to Network Rail chief executive David Higgins, on his visit to the Reading works, about the ways in which his team’s work could improve safety on the railways, by reducing the risk of electrocution, for example, by using their visualization tools to highlight live versus dead electrification.

Signal sighting

Another major piece of work utilising the team’s skills and software tools is signal sighting, with visual simulations.

Malone calls that a “huge success story”, and notes that signal sighting is a major preoccupation of the Crossrail engineering data team at the moment.

On the Reading project, he said: “Using the models we’ve created, we can simulate where the signals will be in the future, and with the software we use, we can move signals literally within a moment of being asked to. So if there’s a problem with a signal, we can look at all the various options to consider how the design needs to be changed. It goes without saying that it’s proved itself as totally invaluable.”

 The new platforms at the rebuilt Reading station, for example, will mean many changes to signalling, all while maintaining an operational railway. Ensuring drivers are aware of all of these is a major challenge, and the simulations tied into the project model help do this.

Malone explained: “We can position signals interactively, doing it there and then, rather than waiting. All of the changes we’re making within this environment, under the guidance of the signal sighting team, get reflected back and everything gets updated, which has a knock-on effect on all other designs.

“This is a major tool, as we can use it to produce driver training videos, for route learning. At Rugby, the cost saving was major, because we were able to do this sort of work in-house. It gives the drivers a better understanding of what to expect, and we’ve already produced one video for First Great Western drivers going into platform 4.

“An aspiration, but one that can really happen quite quickly, is to automate signal sighting forms. That sounds like a small win, but is actually large. At the moment, when the signal sighting committee put together their forms, it’s a long, arduous task; any time there’s a change you have to re-do the form, that’s a pain. This, by automating it, could make their lives a lot easier. We hope to have that developed by the end of this project.”

Augmented reality

The next major stage will be augmented reality, already in use in gaming, architecture and some other industries.

The idea has long been a staple of science fiction, but the rise in tablet devices has sparked a boom in potential applications – and project management on construction schemes is certainly one of them.

Imagine yourself standing on piece of empty brownfield land, looking at where a new viaduct or station building will be built. Using a tablet device and augmented reality, you will be able to see what will be there on your screen as you move it around in front of you, linked to the central 3D models and designs, which are all tagged geospatially.

Malone said: “Using that software, we can overlay – or underlay – our 3D models on the reality of what you’re seeing on your video screen, so you can hold up your iPad, look through it and it will bring in the models.

“You wouldn’t just be seeing a flat image, you could walk around it, see the underside – and then perhaps see part of the model going straight through the real-life manhole next to you and alter the design accordingly.

“We’ve been asked to test this for buried services to begin with, but we want to expand that remit. This is something we’re very keen on.”

The team says they have heard of the technology being used on a building construction projects as a marketing tool, with potential investors taken up in a helicopter to ‘see’ a proposed building using augmented reality. It proved a useful tool in that case – and quite the moneyspinner. It could tie in especially well with a planned roll-out of iPads to maintenance teams, and Malone sees particular uses with snag detection and close-out, and in asset management.

Snags – those items of work still outstanding at the end of the project that need to be done before hand-back – traditionally involve a lot of form-filling and documentation.

But Malone said: “I was in charge of assessing snagging data on the WCML project at Rugby. One of the things we always wanted to have was photographic evidence of snags being undertaken and closed out. By using augmented reality, each of the snags can be tagged in a geospatial location. The man out on site can look through his viewer, see where it is in the distance, and the tag will tell him which way to go and which of three location cabinets to go to for example. It saves him time, and perhaps prevents him crossing more lines than necessary, for example. Once he’s done the work that closes that snag, he takes a photograph of it, sends that straight back to the server, and that snag is closed out, with photographic evidence: no need to sign lots of forms.”

Malone says this is just one of about a dozen potential uses of the technology in project management he has in mind.

He added: “Augmented reality could change the way everybody works on the railways. It’s that important.”

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