Multidimensional mobile mapping and integrated approach for the digitalisation of underground transport infrastructure

The tunnel industry has started focusing on the maintenance and management challenges of an existing infrastructure. It is an urgent matter in industrialised countries, where the stakeholders’ attention is increasing at a fast pace considering the incidents and the disruptions caused by improper monitoring and maintenance. This paper presents an innovative methodology to survey and inspect existing railway tunnels through multi-dimensional mobile mapping systems. The proposed approach belongs to the digital strategies for infrastructure maintenance. An integrated multidimensional survey system (ARCHITA) allows for collecting information necessary for the diagnostics of a structure with non-destructive tests. Linear cameras, thermographic cameras, and ground-penetrating radars acquire data to be digitalised and manipulated in different IT environments. The results, in terms of the collected data on structural defects, allow for a new approach for the Management and Identification of the Risk for Existing Tunnels (MIRET). The innovative approach aims at a smart integration of information and models for the Facility Management of the transport system. The workflow for the digitalisation and diagnosis from mobile mapping data has been implemented on two 40km-long metro tunnels.