Digital Design Experts Share Glimpse of Transportation’s Future in Roads & Bridges Magazine

Lessons From PennDOT’s Digital Delivery Directive 2025

Transportation agencies want to complete projects more efficiently, and digital design technology offers that opportunity. But reorganizing workflows and learning new processes and requirements can be daunting. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has begun this transformation with a five-year plan that will end with the ability for all of its projects to be bid and constructed using 3D technology such as building information modeling.

HDR is leading the planning and implementation of PennDOT’s Digital Delivery Directive 2025. HDR Project Manager Dan Giles wrote about the state’s process so far for Roads & Bridges magazine, with HDR's Transportation BIM Program Manager Alexa Mitchell and Highways and Roads BIM Director Jennifer Steen.

The three offered key context on the industry shift to digital delivery — sometimes called BIM for Infrastructure. They cited recent benefit-cost analysis research that shows the significant financial benefits of model-based delivery. And the authors offered key lessons and takeaways from Pennsylvania’s experience for other agencies that hope to make their own transitions.

“The digital delivery approach offers an array of benefits,” the authors wrote, “including improved constructability, fewer change orders, enhanced visualization, better interdisciplinary coordination, an improved ability to share design intent, and enhanced design and construction efficiency. In plain terms, the approach means lower project costs and time saved.”

Read the article, "Transportation’s Digital Design Future," in Roads & Bridges.