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The deployment of BIM in the new construction of the Rastatt tunnel was part of one of four pilot projects in Germany assigned by German Rail and the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure.
The Rastatt tunnel is part of a larger railway expansion project between Karlsruhe (Germany) and Basel (Switzerland). The tunnel runs completely underground and at 4270m, is the largest single structure of the project. The route serves around 250 freight and passenger trains per day and is being developed 20 metres below ground to significantly reduce noise pollution for residents.
On the basis of the traditional 2D plan, the aim was to test the application of the BIM method. We advised the company on the implementation of both digital planning and BIM. A 3D plan of the tunnel was drawn up and extended to include scheduling and cost planning as the fourth and fifth dimensions respectively. Those involved in the project had access to this database, which was now considerably larger and brought about notable improvements, both in terms of the quality of the planning and in terms of transparency with regard to schedule and cost control.
For our client DB Netz AG (the railway infrastructure provider), the planning and management of large-scale construction projects with BIM is a way of improving the transparency and efficiency of the procedures.
“In the BIM pilot project Rastatt tunnel the BIM method was used for the first time on a large-scale DB Netz AG project. We turned to Arup here as an external consultant, in order to ensure international best practice with regard to the Building Information Modelling method, still relatively new in Germany, in this project. Arup has already developed BIM implementation strategies for large-scale DB Netz AG projects on previous occasions. ” Sascha Bjorn Klar Project Manager for large-scale projects at DB Netz AG
