Conceptual framework of a Project Bank Account (PBA) blockchain payment application for the construction industry

The UK government published a guidance document in 2012 stipulating the use of project bank accounts (PBA) to promote fair and prompt payment practices in the construction industry. PBA utilises a project-specific escrow bank account to provide greater cash flow auditability and mitigate cascading payments down the supply chain. However, PBA is bureaucratic to manage and costly to set up. This paper will investigate whether blockchain can be used as an alternative system for executing PBA payments

Towards fully-automated code compliance checking of building regulations: challenges for rule interpretation and representation

Before the building design is finalised, it needs to be checked against regulations. Traditionally, manual compliance checking is error-prone and time-consuming. As a solution, automatic compliance checking (ACC) was proposed. Many studies have focused on the crucial ACC rule interpretation process, yet no research has synthesised the themes and identified future research opportunities. This paper thus aims to fill this gap by conducting a systematic literature review and identifying challenges facing this field. Findings revealed that the representation development process lacks a methodological backdrop. Understandings of rules, representations, and relationships between them are insufficient. Potential solutions were proposed to address these challenges

Capabilities of rule representations for automated compliance checking in healthcare buildings

A suitable rule representation is essential to enable automated compliance checking of building design. It encapsulates engineering knowledge and facilitates an adequate interpretation of design standards. However, existing methods have achieved limited capabilities to represent rules for automated compliance checking. Thus, they merely worked for limited types of rules. This paper aims to identify capabilities needed for rule representation by using healthcare design regulations as an example. It can serve as a foundation for developing rule engines and compliance-checking systems in the future. A four-step process was used to systematically analyse six healthcare building regulations in rule-oriented and implementation aspects. The results showed 18 capabilities for healthcare rule representation, where 16 are required, and two are desirable. This research is valuable to researchers and practitioners by providing a checklist for future representation development and criteria for assessing rule representation methods

A multi-representation method of building rules for automatic code compliance checking

In the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry, design review is an important step that often leads to project delays, as the typical manual compliance checking process is error-prone and time-consuming. As an approach to accelerate this process and achieve a better quality of design, automatic compliance checking (ACC) has been researched for several decades. Rule interpretation and representation is a bottleneck of ACC. It focuses on the interpretation of regulations and the representation of them in a suitable computer-readable form. Despite extensive research efforts, a rule representation method that is suitable to represent all types of rules has yet to be proposed. To address this issue, this research proposed a multi-representation method that provides a “mix and match” for different representations and different types of rules, thereby representing all types of rules with suitable representations. This research is valuable to both academia and industry as it enables the representation of rules with less knowledge loss and more accuracy

Underpass clearance checking in highway widening projects using digital twins

Main road widening can reduce the clearance of the low-level underpass road, restricting the passage of vehicles and leading to collisions with structures. Therefore, checking the clearance of the underpass road effectively should be considered at the design stage. This paper describes a digital twin approach for checking the clearance of underpass roads in highway widening projects using online map data. The underpass road digital twin and BIM model of the newly widened road based on the existing main road digital twin are created to assist the clearance check and redesign. The proposed method presented a cost-effective clearance check for underpass roads in road widening design without field surveys and was successfully implemented in an underpass road in the UK. In future research, more digital twin methods for overpasses, bridges, tunnels, and traffic safety facilities should be employed comprehensively to assist more road widening applications

SeeCarbon: a review of digital approaches for revealing and reducing infrastructure, building and City's carbon footprint

Dealing with climate change and its consequences on the environment have been one of the biggest challenges nowadays, where reducing the carbon footprint has been the focus of most sustainable strategies. The infrastructure is the dominant sector responsible for the total carbon footprint, accounting for approximately 70% of global carbon emissions. This study aims to illustrate the state-of-the-art of digital development and transformation of revealing and reducing carbon footprint in the Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Facility Management (AEC/FM) sectors. The digital tools for revealing and reducing infrastructure’s carbon footprint would be summarized and also compared with other sectors, namely the tools for building and city. Current challenges and future development are also included

Sustainable road alignment planning in the built environment based on the MCDM-GIS method

Sustainable road planning in the cities' built-up areas strives to meet traffic demands of society within limited spaces available for construction and various constraints in the built environment considering engineering, traffic, economic, social, and environmental factors. Unlike rural areas, road planning in the built environment can be significantly influenced by the surroundings, such as existing buildings, road network, and land use, and should consider noise and air pollution impact on residents. In addition, road width and road widening are significant factors for road alignment planning. Based on the MCDM-GIS method, the least-cost wide path algorithm is employed for sustainable road alignment planning in the built environment, considering building demolition and land use, traffic congestion, noise impact, air pollution impact, and construction costs. Road width, new road construction, and existing road widening are considered simultaneously. Several methods are proposed to digitalise and parse various sustainable factors into understandable expressions for road alignment planning. Forbidden areas and road buffer areas for road widening are defined. The proposed method is implemented in road planning in Dartford, Kent County, UK. Sustainable factors with different weights can generate various road alignments from different perspectives, and road widths can significantly and locally influence road alignments

Building demolition estimation in urban road widening projects using as-is BIM models

Building demolition caused by urban road widening projects can lead to engineering, economic, and environmental issues and should be planned at the design stage. Based on as-is BIM, this paper proposes a method to estimate the building demolition caused by urban road widening using online map data and statistics on government websites. The as-is BIM models of the existing old road and its surrounding buildings are created, and the BIM models of the newly widened road are built based on the as-is BIM models considering road components in accordance with road engineering expressions to assist building demolition estimation using clash detection. This paper presents a cost-effective building demolition estimation in urban road widening projects without field surveys. It was tested on the M4 Motorway project in London. It has been proved to be a very practical approach to facilitate urban road planning and decision making

Digital Tools for Revealing and Reducing Carbon Footprint in Infrastructure, Building, and City Scopes

The climate change issue has been striking and bringing pressure on all countries and industries. The responsibility of the Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Facility Management (AEC/FM) industry is heavy because it accounts for over one-third of global energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, the development of digital technology brings the opportunity to mitigate environmental issues. Therefore, this study intended to examine the state-of-the-art of digital development and transformation in the AEC/FM industry by collecting and reviewing the developed digital carbon footprint analysis tools in infrastructure, building, and city scopes. Specifically, this study (1) generated a review methodology for carbon footprint analysis results; (2) demonstrated the review results from the infrastructure, building, and city scopes, analysed and compared the results crossing the scopes from four aspects: carbon footprint analysis strategy, standards and protocols, rating systems, and general development level of digital tools; and (3) discussed the potential directions in the industry to address the environmental issues. This study indicated that the digitalisation level regarding carbon-related areas is still at an early stage, and efforts should be taken both academically and practically to drive the digital development confronting the harsh climate change issue