Lifecycle Data Modeling to Support Transferring Project-Oriented Data to Asset-Oriented Systems in Transportation Projects

Abstract

Construction projects are key sources of data changes made to a transportation asset management system (TAMS). Because projects create new assets or modify existing ones, corresponding edits are required to ensure that the database reflects the actual status (e.g., geolocation, geometry) of the infrastructure system. In the current practice, due to the lack of an effective handover mechanism to allow for a direct communication between project and asset management, recording asset changes are significantly laborious and highway agencies encounter various data loss issues. This study aims to develop a lifecycle data model that can guide project handover and allow for project deliverables to become mergeable into TAMSs. The study conducted a large number of focus group discussions and interviews with highway professionals over a 1-year period to capture the flow of asset data throughout the lifecycle of various types of transportation assets. This information was used to develop a handover data model to support transferring design and construction data to asset management. The model was tested on a case study in which the abstract model was compiled into an ontology in the Ontology Web Language (OWL) format. The data of a real traffic sign project were modeled as instances in the OWL ontology. The experiment results indicated that reasoning rules and queries based on the proposed model can successfully extract required asset data from project documents.