Life cycle sustainability assessment of road infrastructure: a building information modeling-(BIM) based approach

Abstract

A significant share of federal and regional infrastructure budgets is spent on constructing, maintaining, repairing, and replacing road infrastructure. Due to its magnitude, sustainable road construction practices can support national sustainable development goals (e.g. The Federal Sustainable Development Strategy of Canada). However, the quest for sustainable road construction practices has been hindered by the lack of expertise, information, and resources. The advent of building information modeling (BIM) provides more extensive access to functional and physical data of construction material. Published literature has overlooked BIM-based methods that facilitate the life cycle sustainability evaluation of road construction techniques. This paper presents a methodological framework for life cycle thinking-based road infrastructure evaluation. This framework compares the life cycle sustainability performance of alternative road pavement construction methods. A BIM-based visual program has been created to automate the proposed framework. The program was demonstrated by comparing three road construction methods for a collector road. Results indicated that geomembrane road is the best solution based on the triple bottom line of sustainability. The proposed Life cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) framework, a BIM-based tool, and the implementation road map will assist infrastructure managers in selecting the most sustainable road construction method that will consequently support United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).