Information flows in highway project delivery

Transport infrastructure projects involve many stakeholders sharing information across organisational and temporal boundaries. Each silo within the sector has reached a high level of maturity at managing its own information but there are weaknesses in exchanging information with others. The growing use of Building Information Modelling requires closer alignment of processes for the creation, distribution and validation of project information across stakeholders, but this topic has had little scrutiny in the linear infrastructure sector and is poorly understood by clients or major suppliers. The aspiration of this paper is to understand the information flows from project inception to handover and surface some of the challenges in developing common or complementary protocols. Over 20 semi-structured interviews with actors from different parts of the UK infrastructure supply chain were recorded and transcribed. These were then analysed using Computer Aided Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS) to identify stakeholders and information flows. This is supplemented with a review of published and unpublished process documentation from major infrastructure organisations. A systems model is presented which structures the outputs of the qualitative analysis. The number of stakeholders causes question to the aspiration for a single Common Data Environment and there are challenges in maintaining protocols across vertical boundaries. Email, CDs and folder based document management systems are the principle means of transferring information. The outputs of this research highlight the challenges facing project teams in implementing information management practices and that, despite decades of research into project collaboration, there is a long way to go for the sector to meet the aspirations of the UK Government’s BIM Strategy. The model presented will have practical uses for organisations attempting to overcome silo mentalities in information management practices and assist in the development of pragmatic strategies during infrastructure project delivery.