The rapid evolution of digital technologies is offering state departments of transportation (DOTs) new opportunities to better collect and use data for project and asset management, including the creation of digital as-builts (DABs).
DABs are digital records of the constructed condition of assets in an electronic format that can be shared, searched, and extracted for various uses. DABs are also durable—the information will be accessible over the life of the asset.
FHWA’s Every Day Counts (EDC) program hosted a workshop in June 2022 that presented successful strategies from DOTs—including Minnesota’s—that are at various points in the process.
MnDOT aligned its DABs program to its asset management plan, resulting in a list of about 75 asset classes. MnDOT routinely requires contractors to collect DABs for 12 asset classes such as guardrails, culverts, and signs that are included in its Transportation Asset Management Plan.
The digital as-built formats range from spreadsheets with 2D latitude/longitude locations to 3D survey files, all of which conform to specific formats to enable them to be incorporated into statewide or regional asset tracking tools. MnDOT realized a 30 percent efficiency in data collection when using the asset tracking tools on design projects.
Other uses for MnDOT’s DAB data include One Call service call responses and an extreme flood vulnerability tool developed using bridge and culvert asset data and climate projections.
MnDOT also has a construction manager/general contractor (CM/GC) project, the Elk River Freeway, which is piloting the use of digital delivery with DAB information. The project has a guaranteed maximum price of $130 million, and MnDOT reports documented savings of $15 million to date attributed primarily to use of 3D model-based project delivery combined with CM/GC contracting. Other highlights from the EDC workshop:
- South Carolina maintains a searchable online inventory of as-built records that has 2,600 users and more than 700,000 searches per year. It contains as-built records dating back to the 1920s and 1930s. More than 2.5 million plan sheets are available online, including as-built plans.
- Florida uses digitally signed PDFs for construction contract documents; this laid the foundation for capturing as-builts in a digital PDF format.
- Colorado collects utility locations as part of an enhanced and standardized subsurface utility engineering workflow, which includes as-constructed utilities. CDOT manages the 3D utility information for long-term reference as a digital as-built.
(Adapted from the FHWA Innovator, September/October 2022.)