Interaction Between Airport Facilities And The Surrounding Area Within The GIS And BIM Interoperability

In the planning and management of civil facilities, geospatial data plays a crucial role. Traditionally, the Geographic Information System (GIS) is the tool for storing, manipulating and analysing spatial and geographic data. However, recent developments in new methods and technologies are reshaping the methodologies and processes of the Architecture, Engineering and Construction industry. Encouraged by the current regulatory system, an improvement in approach, leading from the traditional planning to a shared and highly integrated digital model, is now made possible by using the Building Information Modelling (BIM). The collaborative project environment, typical of BIM tools, could become an important key success factor, especially in a framework of interoperability with other systems, such as GIS. Focusing on the airfield, this study aims to evaluate the potentiality and benefits given by the implementation of airport facilities in the BIM system and their interaction with the surrounding area. The results reveal that GIS and BIM interoperability enables to achieve a broader and deeper understanding of the digital models in the larger territorial context, facilitating for instance the analysis of possible interferences with aircraft operations in the interaction between facilities and surroundings. Furthermore, having the airport facilities implemented in BIM system, an overall optimisation of the management, maintenance, control and monitoring processes, as well as a better quality and saving on time and costs, could be observed. For this purpose, the application of a case study in this research work confirms the validity related to the practical features of the proposed framework. In fact, investigating the main requirements and characteristics to be taken into account during the BIM-GIS interoperability processes, the present approach may constitute a support tool for better planning and management of airport facilities.