Industry news 2022 must be year of climate adaptation Companies news Bentley Systems announces award winners Global infrastructure engineering software company Bentley Systems has crowned the winners from its major competition the 2021 Going Digital in Infrastructure Awards. Held virtually, the global contest recognised digital advancements in infrastructure in 19 categories, using project examples submitted by user organisations from 45 countries. Bentleys award programme has recognised more than 4,000 projects since its inception 17 years ago. Read more about the winners and finalists here. Environment Agency chair Emma Howard Boyd says 2022 must be a year that focuses on climate adaptation. Delivering a speech to the Coastal Futures conference, Howard Boyd said: At the Environment Agency, we analyse the data and see that climate change is making it harder to hold weather-related shocks at arms length. Nine thousand kilometres of open English coast is currently at risk from sea flooding, erosion and landslips. Even if we reach net zero by 2050, sea levels will continue to rise well into the next century. By 2100, once-a-century sea level events are set to become annual events. Climate change is taking existing risks and it is increasing their severity, frequency and duration. She called for a review to assess the true cost of climate impacts and the impact of investing in resilience. The Coalition for Climate Resilient Investment which I coChair can help, she said. The CCRI currently has 120 members, featuring both governments and investors, with more than US$20 trillion in assets. By pricing climate risks, particularly for infrastructure, and including them in upfront financial decision-making, the CCRI is showing how to incentivise a shift towards greater climate resilience. She concluded: We need to plan, adapt and thrive to save lives and livelihoods. To ensure the success of the UKs COP26 Presidency and drive the ambition of the Green Industrial Revolution, 2022 must become The Year of Climate Adaptation. Companies news HS2 to use virtual reality to increase reliability Virtual reality and real-time monitoring by sensors will be built into the HS2s infrastructure, including rails, bridges and overhead power lines, to increase reliability. According to HS2 Ltd, detailed designs are being prepared by engineers on Britains new highspeed rail network HS2 the eastern leg of which Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced has been scrapped. The data produced from the advanced computer design programs will both inform construction of HS2 and build the railways digital twin, a virtual reality 3D replica that will be as detailed as the real thing. During HS2s construction, thousands of remote condition-monitoring sensors, similar to those used in Formula One and aviation, will be built into the physical lines infrastructure as if it were the railways version of the bodys nervous system. These sensors will monitor performance of the railways assets and components to predict and prevent failure, helping to underpin the lines reliability and, ultimately, the punctuality of its passenger services. Taking live information on the health of its infrastructure from thousands of sensors across the route and building it into HS2s digital twin will create Britains new high speed rail network in complete virtual form. The data that sensors on board the high-speed trains collect will be transmitted directly to HS2s Birmingham-based Network Integrated Control Centre (NICC) at Washwood Heath. Here, engineers and maintenance teams will analyse data with the use of artificial intelligence to monitor asset performance trends across the network. A downward trend in asset performance will trigger HS2s predict-and-prevent maintenance programme. However, before going out on site engineers will use virtual reality headsets to investigate issues from the safety of the NICC. The technology will enable maintenance teams to understand issues and, in some cases, resolve them without having to go out on location. The benefit of operating a predict and prevent system on HS2 will enable parts to be repaired and replaced when the asset says rather than relying on a rolling programme of maintenance and renewals. David White, Head of Strategic Planning and Asset Management, said: With HS2s digital twin-based predict and prevent approach to maintenance, we have the ability to prevent failures and replace assets when the system indicates a decline in performance as opposed to relying on a rolling programme of asset replacement. Harnessing the power of the digital twin and its predictive capability could see an assets operational life extended by months or even years. This will enable us to reduce cost, cut waste and shrink the environmental footprint of HS2s maintenance operation and maintain a consistently high level of customer service. Industry news DfT pauses smart motorway programme The rollout of new smart motorway schemes will be paused until a full five years worth of safety data is available, the UK Department for Transport (DfT) has said. In line with the Transport Committees most recent recommendations, the rollout of new ALR (all lanes running) smart motorways will be paused until the safety data becomes available for schemes introduced before 2020. After this point, the government will assess the data and make a decision on next steps. Although available data shows smart motorways are comparatively the safest roads in the country in terms of fatality rates, while their rollout is paused, the government will go further by ensuring current smart motorways without a permanent hard shoulder are equipped with best-in-class technology and resources to make them as safe as possible. This will include investing 390 million to install more than 150 additional emergency areas so drivers have more places to stop if they get into difficulty. This will represent around a 50 per cent increase in places to stop by 2025, giving drivers added reassurance. The DfT said it welcomed the Transport Committees report, which endorsed its focus on further upgrading the safety of existing ALR smart motorways rather than reinstating the hard shoulder. As concluded by the committee, evidence suggests hard shoulders do not always provide a safe place to stop, and by reducing motorway capacity, they could put more drivers and passengers at risk of death or serious injury if they were to divert onto less safe local roads. National Highways CEO Nick Harris said: We have listened to public concerns about smart motorways and we are fully committed to taking forward the additional measures the Transport Committee has recommended. While we pause those all lane running schemes yet to start construction, we will complete the schemes currently in construction. We will make existing sections as safe as they can possibly be and we will step up our advice to drivers so they have all the information they need. We are doing this because safety is our absolute priority and we want drivers to not just be safer, but also to feel safe on our busiest roads. Companies news Digital twin aids Canada Water Masterplan Software company Sensat has successfully mapped and brought together all past, present, and future data of Canada Waters 53-acre site in one digital replica. Embarking on an ambitious 4 billion project to redevelop Canada Waters 53-acre site, leading UK property development and investment company British Land, in partnership with Southwark Council, is developing a new town centre for London communities that complements the area, making an active, positive, long-term contribution to local life. Working with British Land, and Amodal, an information management firm for the built environment, Sensat has developed an up-to-date visual resource designed to help better understand the site and its constraints to expedite the options appraisal process, feasibility reporting, and risk evaluations. As part of the Canada Water Masterplan, British Land selected Amodal and Sensat to provide a complete overview of the entire site, where multiple teams and project stakeholders can easily visualise site conditions without having to be on site, supporting project decision-making, contingency planning, and frictionless collaboration. David Walters, Programme Director at British Land, said: The ability to both accurately scan the site, and confidently pull together lots of disparate data into one single platform, is amazingly powerful. The speed of iteration really helps for quicker options appraisal, more efficient handover processes, and better clash detection to reduce contingency costs. Its been an invaluable resource when thinking through phasing. Adopting a Common Visualisation Environment (CVE), such as Sensats, enhances our visualisation capability and has proven instrumental when it comes to data validation. By scanning the site using drones, and displaying this highly accurate data in Sensats platform, we have been able to establish disparities between the actual locations of assets and their previously documented locations. Spotting problems early, ahead of the design phase, means we can significantly reduce the level of risk contingency costs, which could easily be into the millions. Being part of one of the largest mixed-use regeneration projects in London has demonstrated how bringing all the right information together can really change the dynamic of a project for the better. A masterplan of this cost and scale could easily become fragmented, falling foul to misaligned incentives, behaviours, and objectives, as well as delayed delivery timetables due to unreliable data, but we have helped overcome this and accelerate planning, said James Dean, CEO at Sensat. Its only when you see comprehensive information on existing assets, above- and below-ground utilities and infrastructure, as well as surveys and inspections, visually in one place that you can support collective problem-solving and mitigate the risks. We look forward to continuing to be a key enabler for smart planning to help partners build better and see the wider knock-on benefits this will have on other stakeholders linked to the masterplan.