Virtual Academy to Support the Agency in Advancing Project and Road Asset Performance through BIM-enabled Asset Management

LONDON — (BUSINESS WIRE) — November 5, 2014 — Bentley Systems, the leading provider of software solutions for sustaining infrastructure, and the Highways Agency, responsible for operating, maintaining, and improving England’s strategic road network, today announce plans for an AssetWise Academy. Bentley’s AssetWise software is already being rolled out and further extended to serve as the Highways Agency’s Integrated Asset Management Information System (IAM IS). Now Bentley and the Highways Agency announce plans to provide a virtual environment for introducing and propagating best practices for BIM-enabled asset management, through the AssetWise Academy.

David Robertson, Bentley Director, BIM academies, said, “Building on the successful academy development with Crossrail, the goal of the Highways Agency’s new AssetWise Academy is to drive industry best practices and standards, evolve solution templates, capture and recycle lessons learned, and advance asset lifecycle information management across the Highways Agency’s business. This will be achieved through onboarding and awareness sessions, forums, and targeted seminars and working groups within the AssetWise Academy, all supported by project-specific course content created jointly by Bentley and the Highways Agency.”

Robert Greaves, Head of IT at the Highways Agency, said, “As the Highways Agency changes our structural focus to become increasingly dynamic, forward thinking, and commercially driven around asset management, the AssetWise Academy will play a key role in helping us propagate best practices to take full advantage of AssetWise IAM IS capabilities as they grow. Bentley’s work has already included rollout of the solution to a significant proportion of our asset support contracts, and ongoing development will next year include Network Events, and then Structures, followed by Drainage, and Geotechnics implementation in 2016.”

In 2012, Bentley’s AssetWise software platform became the Highways Agency’s comprehensive foundation (IAM IS) for asset information management, and will replace 17 disparate systems. AssetWise provides management and visibility of network and asset data using multiple linear referencing methods within a single spatial and temporal-enabled database, furnishing a robust network database model to underpin and integrate network-based applications. It also helps users control information and manage change throughout the asset lifecycle, ensuring the delivery of accurate, trusted information to operations and maintenance teams.

The AssetWise platform ensures that the Highways Agency and its supply chain will share a single, integrated system for information management related to roadway assets inventory, condition, defects, and repair works. The Highways Agency is using this common data to support and measure, in an accurate and consistent way, the ability of its service providers to complete roadworks that improve the safety of roads and highways and reduce traffic congestion. Bentley’s MANAGEservices is facilitating the provisioning, expedited deployment, and operation of the Highways Agency’s AssetWise asset information management services in a hybrid cloud-services environment.

Alan Kiraly, Bentley Senior Vice President, server products, said, “The AssetWise software platform brings together proven technologies (deriving from Exor, eB, Bentley Map, and InspectTech, among others) that offer new information mobility and comprehensive integration on behalf of owner-operators such as the Highways Agency. With AssetWise, we are advancing our future platform for all owner-operators. Significantly, this is enabling us to deliver IAM IS to the Highways Agency as a commercial off-the-shelf software offering, cloud-service provisioned through our MANAGEservices. Our dedicated team is responsible also for the delivery of learning, operational support, and change management for the Agency and its service providers. We are currently discussing with the Agency how our AssetWise Academy can be deployed to support further innovation, addressed towards people and processes, for fully achieving the benefits of technology advances.”

For additional information about Bentley’s AssetWise products, visit www.bentley.com/AssetWise.

About the Highways Agency

The Highways Agency operates, maintains and improves the strategic road network in England. This road network is around 4,300 miles long and is made up of motorways and trunk roads. While this road network represents only 2 per cent of all roads in England by length, it carries a third of all traffic by mileage – and two thirds of all heavy goods traffic, making it the economic backbone of the country.

The Agency also manages and helps prevent incidents on England’s motorways through its Traffic Officer service. For additional information about the Highways Agency, visit http://www.highways.gov.uk/default.aspx.

About The Year in Infrastructure 2014 Conference

Bentley’s Year in Infrastructure 2014 Conference, taking place this week at the Hilton London Metropole in London, U.K., is a global gathering of leading executives in the world of infrastructure design, construction, and operations. The conference features a series of presentations and interactive workshops exploring the intersection of technology and business drivers, and how they are shaping the future of infrastructure delivery and investment returns. The Year in Infrastructure 2014 Conference includes: the Project Delivery Summit, the Infrastructure Asset Performance Summit, the Building Forum, the Rail and Road Forum, the Oil, Gas, Chemical, and Mining Forum, the EPC and A/E Forum, the Utilities Forum, the Visions for the Future Forum, and the Be Inspired Awards finalists competition and ceremony recognizing the award winners. In addition, on Nov. 3, more than 100 journalists from leading media outlets around the globe gathered at the Hilton London Metropole for Bentley’s annual Media Day briefing. For additional information about The Year in Infrastructure 2014 Conference, click here .