With the recent signing of an agreement between BuildingPoint Australia and Trimble as the Distribution Partner for Trimble Quantm, we spoke with Bill Lazaris FIE Aust, Civil Engineering Software Advisor with Trimble Planning Solutions (TPS) who has been involved with the Quantm technology for over 20 years but has 27 years as a professional engineer in infrastructure planning and project management under his belt.

Bill is recognised globally as an expert trainer and practitioner in Quantm alignment planning and has managed the implementation and service delivery on some of TPS’s signature projects in the European, Middle Eastern, and African regions from highly environmentally sensitive 3km mine haul road in Africa to over 8,000 km of high-speed rail planning globally.  Bill is currently working with many Australian Design Consultants on road and rail planning studies, training their staff in the Quantm software.

QUANTM’s UNIQUE OPTIMISATION TECHNOLOGY PRODUCES LABOR AND TIME SAVINGS
Trimble Quantm Software helps you plan a new rail, road, or highway project more rapidly with lower construction costs.

Beginning with your vision and ending with a viable infrastructure product, Trimble supports you with the most advanced alignment planning solutions in the industry.

  • Quantm Software makes it easier to consider all feasible alternatives to help make the best decisions
  • Plan for sustainability with better environmental and public outcomes
  • Invest in a better future by reducing capital and operating expenses

It is an ideal collaboration tool that has many uses from the initial public and environmental consultation process to finished design and may be of particular interest to those involved in Design/Build or Alliance projects including those with early contractor involvement.

The Quantm desktop software will be of interest to professionals involved in route planning and road alignment optimisation for projects from one kilometre up to 50 kilometres.  The software is applicable to both urban or rural projects and either Greenfields, realignments, or road reconstruction.  The current version allows users to refine the vertical geometry to reduce earthwork and other constructions costs, based on an analysis of the material flow along the road alignment, after introducing the project constraints to material flow.

THE OUTPUT OF QUANTM IS THE INPUT TO YOUR DESIGN.

The Quantm alignment software integrates engineering, environmental, social, and economic factors into a simultaneous analysis of alignment alternatives. This is a holistic approach to planning linear infrastructure. Planners and designers can use Quantm technology to identify how best to minimise the environmental and social impacts of road and rail projects while reducing construction costs for taxpayers and project owners. The Quantm system is used at every stage of alignment planning from initial scoping through feasibility and detailed planning to pre-bid and post-bid engineering studies. It has been applied by companies and governments around the world on several hundred transport infrastructure projects.

Typical alignment construction cost savings, in undulating or rougher terrain, are more than 15% for highways, when compared to results determined using the previous industry best practice planning method. Examples where it has saved time and money and assisted community engagement, include:

  • High-speed rail in Australia, USA, China, Portugal, Brazil, and Russia
  • Regional rail studies
  • Mining freight rail
  • Mining haul roads
  • Toll Roads
  • Regional transport planning
  • Small Road Projects

Trimble recently conducted a Quantm Pilot Study Review report with International Engineering Consultant URS Corporation

“The Quantm evaluation produces cut and fill quantities, an optimised horizontal and vertical alignment, impact estimates, and cost estimates in a fraction of the time that would be spent by the project team.  The total technical time estimate for selecting corridors and developing line-and-grade-detail alignments is estimated to span over four calendar months.  While the Quantm results must be exported and annotated for use in a Line and Grade Analysis and for use in the Environmental Impact Statement, the development of the results took only a few days.

While Quantm does not replace the planner/engineer design team, it provides substantial ‘analytical’ support to this team, exhaustively evaluating alignment ideas and options created by changing design criteria and by ‘seeding’ new alignments by the user. This ability encourages ‘out of the box’ alternative development, and allows otherwise expended time and money to be used more prudently in other facets of the planning and line of grade efforts, that Quantm supports”

International Engineering Consultant URS Corporation – Quantm Pilot Study Review report

The fully-featured desktop planning software allows the input and the assessment of a wide range of features and parameters such as:

  • Digital Terrain Models (unlimited creations)
  • Geology and Soil structures
  • Avoidance areas such as Heritage sites, environmentally sensitive areas, urban areas, etc.
  • Mass Haul with Barriers (that is the movement of material along the alignment and the usage of borrow and dump sites)
  • Costing information for earthworks, structures, road pavement, area costs, etc.
  • Geometrical and Topographical constraints
  • Manual creation and editing of alignments
  • Geometric optimisation
  • 3D Visualisation
  • CO2 and fuel calculator
  • Noise Calculator

For more information on Trimble Quantm contact your local BuildingPoint Representative on 1800 900 272.