French national rail authority SNCF Réseau has selected GNSS and software specialist Trimble’s Quadri and Connect software to serve as the central system within SNCF’s Enterprise Common Data Environment (CDE) for Building Information Modelling (BIM) models for the next three years.

SNCF manages the largest high-speed rail in Europe of over 30,000 kilometres and manages a large portfolio of greenfield (network extension) and brownfield (network modernisation) projects. The corporate CDE will provide digital continuity across all design and construction phases, and prepare BIM data models for operation & maintenance phases and is expected to enhance the overall company performance.

Under the new three-year contract, SNCF Réseau will be using the Trimble solutions in a range of use cases covering the project lifecycle—from design and construction to operations and maintenance — within its IT environment. Sharing project data across teams should reduce risk of data loss and close the gap between engineering design tools and systems for managing the organisation’s transportation networks.

The SNCF Réseau contract is managed by Trimble Consulting, covering services from strategy advice to setup, implementation and deployment of the Trimble CDE solution across the project’s portfolio and across the divisions of the SNCF Group. As part of the agreement, Trimble Consulting will integrate the Trimble software solutions with SNCF Réseau’s core information systems and provide training, coaching and support.

“A global player like SNCF Réseau is constantly expanding and updating its infrastructure. Railway systems are composed of multiple subsystems with heterogeneous data created using many processes and tools. Having a common data environment that supports collaborative model development for all of our digital assets—from design through project completion and ongoing operation and maintenance, is instrumental in digitising the railway network efficiently and effectively,” said Judicaël Dehotin, deputy director of SNCF Réseau BIM Program and responsible for operational deployment of BIM on railway projects. “The combination of Trimble Quadri and Trimble Connect provides an open common data environment for us to review and manage all assets of a project. It has proven to provide great value both during and after completion of projects, as the model and data collected in project designs and throughout construction play an increasing role in the long-term investment planning for lifecycle costs for the railway.”

“An open common data environment is instrumental in our strategic roadmap as we aim to establish collaboration between all project actors at the planning, design and construction phases and pave the way towards a digital twin of our infrastructure,” said Pierre-Etienne Gautier, director of SNCF Réseau BIM and Digital Continuity Program. “Creating digital models and enriching these consistently through a secure open CDE will also enable us to operate and maintain our infrastructure to the highest standards during its entire lifecycle.”

“SNCF has chosen Trimble solutions as the cornerstone of their strategy to enhance their infrastructure projects’ efficiency. The Quadri and Trimble Connect technologies’ ability to enable owners, planners, designers, engineers and contractors to all safely share their discipline-specific models in a single platform, facilitates close-knit and concurrent teamwork between all project stakeholders. All the while using their existing tools,” said Nassim Saoud, EMEA director, Trimble Consulting.