Tasks
- Design of a 6.5-mile segment of a tollway in Dallas within 15 months.
- Coordination of 12 sub-consultants and 300 employees across 22 offices.
- Engineering of 45 bridges and over 90,000 m² of retaining walls.
- Ensuring strict compliance with the client’s (NTTA) CAD standards.
- Creation of a unified real-time collaborative environment.
Results
- Saved $250,000 in CAD management costs.
- Saved $600,000 in travel expenses due to online design reviews.
- 95% compliance of design documentation with client requirements on the first attempt.
- Completion of review stages two days ahead of schedule.
- Implementation of MicroStation as a foundation for future projects utilizing Digital Twins.
Description
Background of Bentley Solutions Implementation at AECOM
Massive infrastructure projects, such as the construction of State Highway 161 in Texas, require not only engineering excellence but also flawless data logistics. The $416 million project had to be delivered within an extremely tight timeframe — just 15 months for the primary design phase.
AECOM — a global leader in technical and management services — faced the challenge of territorial dispersion. A team of 300 specialists was spread across 22 offices in 7 states. Relying on traditional file-sharing methods (such as FTP or individual office servers) would inevitably have led to versioning chaos, violations of standards, and delays.
For the SH 161 project, it was critical to ensure seamless integration across 13 different design disciplines, including bridges, roadway, drainage, and electrical utilities, within a single managed environment.
This is why AECOM chose the Bentley ecosystem: MicroStation for detailed modeling, ProjectWise for collaboration, and GEOPAK for roadway design.
Key Challenges and Engineering Tasks
The SH 161 Phase 4 project included complex engineering nodes that required high-precision coordination:
- Scale of Structures: 45 bridges and integration with the new Union Pacific rail line.
- Geographic Dispersion: Requirement for LAN-like access to heavy CAD files for engineers across different states.
- Client CAD Standards: Strict NTTA requirements for file naming, drawing formats, and data attributes.
- Iteration Speed: Ability to quickly implement field changes requested by the contractor and achieve immediate approval.
“The success of this project would have been impossible without the use of MicroStation and ProjectWise.”
Why MicroStation and ProjectWise Became Key Success Factors
For AECOM engineers, the transition to the ProjectWise Online cloud platform was a "quiet revolution" that allowed them to focus on design rather than searching for files:
- MicroStation provided stable performance with large volumes of vector data and seamless integration with GEOPAK extensions.
- Managed Workspace: All 210 active users worked with identical settings for fonts, levels, and line styles, regardless of their location.
- "Foolproof" Automation: A custom wizard automatically generated files with correct names according to 8 different client conventions, eliminating human error.
- Role-based Access: Contractors had read-only access, allowing them to perform real-time "constructability" reviews without the risk of damaging the model.
“One of the biggest advantages was the ability for users with different requirements to work in a single environment and produce documents that met standards 95% of the time, within strictly defined deadlines.”
Implementation Results: Figures and Facts
The efficiency of Bentley solutions was confirmed by tangible project budget savings:
- Administrative Savings: AECOM avoided the need to hire separate CAD managers for each office. Centralized management saved $250,000.
- Logistics Savings: Thanks to online project review sessions, the team eliminated numerous business trips, resulting in an additional $600,000 in savings.
- Approval Speed: The full drawing review cycle was reduced to hours, allowing key milestones to be completed two days ahead of schedule.
From Design to Digital Twins
The use of MicroStation created a structured database that serves as the perfect foundation for creating Digital Twins of the asset. This allows the client not just to receive a road, but to manage its lifecycle, model structural wear, and plan maintenance for decades to come, with a complete information model of each of the 45 bridges.
“Thanks to ProjectWise, staff from all offices could focus on the final deliverable rather than whether their drawings met the latest standards.”
The Future of Collaboration: Transition to Bentley Infrastructure Cloud
Effective December 1, 2025, Bentley Systems simplified user management and licensing by unifying ProjectWise and SYNCHRO capabilities within a single platform: Bentley Infrastructure Cloud.
What changed for users? Instead of fragmented services, two main licensing tiers are now available, enabling even more efficient scaling of the AECOM experience across any project:
- Bentley Infrastructure Cloud Connect — A unified web interface for portfolio-wide project visibility, integrated geospatial data, and AI-powered media indexing.
- Bentley Infrastructure Cloud ProjectWise — A complete suite of engineering collaboration tools, including automated PDF generation (rendition service), clash detection, and access to the ProjectWise Explorer desktop application.
These changes remove administrative barriers and provide direct access to advanced analytics and cloud-native automation. ProjectWise 365 and CONNECT portals are being phased out in favor of this unified environment, making CAD standard implementation even simpler and faster.
Scale Your Success with Softprom
The AECOM case proves: MicroStation is not just a drafting program, but a powerful business scaling tool. At Softprom, as a Bentley Systems distributor, we help engineering teams implement these solutions, minimizing the "adaptation period" and tailoring processes to your specific project needs.
Want to achieve the same efficiency? Our specialists are ready to help with configuration selection, licensing setup, and Proof of Concept (POC) execution.
Contact Softprom for professional consultation, trial versions of MicroStation, ProjectWise, or other Bentley Systems solutions, and gain confidence in delivering your most complex projects.