Exchange Format for Geotechnical Contracts for Linear Projects

Last year, our company, represented by Development Director Jan Jiránek, joined the team led by Petra Janků, who was tasked by the Road and Motorway Directorate (ŘSD) with updating Regulation C4 in her role as the project’s technical guarantor. This work was part of the new era of standardization and digitization of the Road and Motorway Directorate’s processes, which the original C4 regulation for processing geotechnical investment project documentation did not include. One of the significant results of our joint work was the design and discussion of the C4 exchange format proposed by ISAX. This exchange format is based on XML with an XSD validation template designed to verify whether the resulting format is formally correct.

Another product of this collaboration is the draft of a new version of the C4 technical regulation, which reflects the C4 exchange format and prescribes a clearly machine-readable structure for geotechnical contract data files, such as borehole documentation and photographic documentation, including links to descriptive information and the correction of several ambiguities that arose from the use of the previous version of the standard.  

The team included geomatics specialists from ISAX, Ing. Barbora Racková and Ing. Jiří Blábol; Ing. Kamil Alferi, representing the Road and Motorway Directorate of the Czech Republic (ŘSD ČR); Ing. Milan Majerčík, representing the Railway Administration; and Richard Binko, representing the Czech Geological Survey. Geotechnical experts were represented by Vít Ambrož, Jan Valenta, Ph.D., David Relich, Ph.D., and Marián Bošanský from our partner company Geostar s.r.o.

Another significant result of our joint work was the basis for the design of a BIM model for geotechnical contracts for the State Fund for Transport Infrastructure (SFDI), prepared by Ing. Jana Gottvaldová, Ph.D., and Ing. Edita Kunčarová on behalf of CadConsulting. The proposal includes a BIM object for the borehole location, the groundwater level surface, and 3D cylinders representing individual geological layers, as clearly shown in the prototype design image.

Currently, approval processes for updating the technical regulation are underway at the Road and Motorway Directorate (ŘSD), and the Railway Administration will initiate a project inspired by the results from the ŘSD, which it will certainly utilize in the planning and construction of the high-speed rail line (VRT). The Czech Geological Survey has agreed to accept the exchange format for the newly planned automated processing of mandatory outputs from geotechnical contracts into the CGS geodatabase, thereby accelerating and, most importantly, digitizing the current process.

Jan Jiránek, Engineer