A Process Model for Collaboration at the Design Stage of Rail Project Delivery

The absence of a clear collaboration process at the design stage of rail projects hinders the ability to provide the right information at the right time for the right purposes. The scope and complexity of rail projects make them particularly sensitive to problems arising from poor collaboration. Within projects, collaboration is a key enabler for effective decision-making and rework reduction, and this leads to time and cost savings. Strategies and technologies such as Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Geographic Information System (GIS) facilitate collaboration among project stakeholders during the asset delivery phase, but require a roadmap to ensure successful implementation. Using collaboration as a theoretical lens, and applying collaboration technologies, this paper conceptualized the collaboration processes for rail delivery with the focus on the design stage. The aim of this research was to develop a collaboration process model at the design stage of rail delivery. Ten in-depth interviews with BIM, GIS, and rail delivery experts were carried out to identify the dimensions and characteristics of the collaboration process model. The collaboration process emerging from the results was modeled using Integrated Definition (IDEF) notation, and revealed the project activities, key players' roles, and responsibilities for effective BIM-GIS-based collaboration in the design stage of rail projects. The process was operationalized by customizing a commercial common data environment platform and was validated using a focus group and an in-depth interview to establish the trustworthiness of the theoretically modeled collaboration process for rail delivery. The precise model of the collaboration process, based on integrated use of BIM and GIS, constitutes a significant original contribution of this research. This model should facilitate smoother implementation of these technologies, timely information flows between project participants, and ultimately more-effective delivery of rail projects.