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Internet GIS for the infrastructure life cycle
Jean-Baptiste Monnier & David Keam Senior Vice President, Bentley Solutions. jeanbaptiste.monnier@bentley.com, david.keam@bentley.com
Abstract
One of the fastest-growing areas of GIS is Web-based technology for planning, designing, building and operating "land-based" infrastructure projects: transportation, telecommunications and the construction industry at large. Although GIS is traditionally confined to the planning stage, geographical information is actually required in all phases of the infrastructure life cycle. Making that information available over the Internet runs the risk of unleashing a deluge of redundant, outdated, incorrect, disorganized and incomplete geographical information. Therefore, an essential element of Internet GIS for infrastructure projects is engineering information management: a powerful project-control structure that gets the right information to the right person at the right time. This structure, serving a wide new audience of information consumers with current and precise geographical data integrated in to all the technologies used for engineering, construction and operations, is geoengineering. Introduction This discussion focuses on how GIS and the Web apply to roadways, telecommunications and the construction industry at large. All of these endeavors involve the planning, designing, engineering, construction and maintenance of infrastructure - relatively permanent structures built on land. For any permanent asset, geography is important. But for roadways and telecommunications, which are spread across large areas of land, the information provided by GIS is critical. It is not surprising, then, that one of the fastest-growing segments of the GIS industry involves the set of technologies that are being developed to help plan, design and build these infrastructure projects and to operate the infrastructure once it is built. These projects are carried out by many enterprises and professionals. Therefore, the information generated and must be shared between business partners (B2B) and between business and government agencies (B2G). Significance of the infrastructure construction market The investment in world infrastructure has been growing during the recent cycle of economic expansion, but that investment is equally important during less favorable times, when governments intervene largely through construction projects to support local employment and the economy. According to the respected trade journal Engineering News-Report, which drew upon information from A/E/C firms, banks, governments and international agencies, the global construction industry represents a $3.4 trillion market. Geoengineering: information technology for infrastructure Information technology (IT) construction planning and engineering processes already include today many well-established software solutions. Currently available systems include GIS and planning, imaging (satellite and aerial), surveying, scanning and raster conversion, AM/FM, civil engineering, telecommunications network engineering and others. As a group, the set of technologies required to serve large infrastructure projects can aptly be termed "geoengineering" technologies.  Figure 1. Geoengineering in use for GIS (planning) and early engineering design. The nature of infrastructure E/C/O As opposed to some other projects involving GIS, infrastructure projects are very expensive investments, and the engineered and constructed assets have long life cycles. Typically, these cycles include the following phases: planning, engineering, bidding and letting, construction, maintenance and operations. The industry analyst firm Daratech has summarized these cycles and the technology that serves them as engineering, construction and operations, or E/C/O. They reported: Specifically, Daratech defines the E/C/O economy as the networks of companies involved in the specification, design, material procurement, construction, operation, renovation and decommissioning of buildings, manufacturing facilities, industrial process plants, infrastructure and other built assets, both public and private. Any large infrastructure asset could be undergoing any number - or all - of these phases at the same time, with a variety of reconstruction and enhancement projects being worked on simultaneously.  Figure 2. Geoengineering infrastructure life cycle.
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