Super system at CSIRO wins Australian technology award

Quantm enables engineers to determine "best option" road and rail routes in a matter of hours, taking account of economic, environmental and social constraints, as well as the geography of the terrain.

The technology helps cut project planning time by up to a third. Alignment construction cost savings are in the order of 20 per cent or higher.

Quantm Executive Chairman, Alan Griffiths, said: "On one road project, Quantm enabled government planners to evaluate 270 million different routes before selecting the best option. Quantm has been exhaustively tested by engineers in State transport authorities and routinely outperforms conventional methods."

Mr. Griffiths said Quantm had also attracted widespread interest from infrastructure planners in Asia and Europe with leading German firm, DorschConsulting, describing the technology as "the missing link" in road and rail construction.

Quantm was formed to commercialise the technology which was used to determine the most cost-effective route for the proposed $3.7b Canberra-to-Sydney Very High Speed Rail Service Project (VHST Project).

CSIRO's Built Environment Sector Director, Larry Little, stated: "Changes to the original alignment identified ways to significantly reduce earthworks for the railway and offered alignment construction cost savings of up to 42%."

The system allows the planner to optimise whole of life costs by evaluating the impact of particular options on both construction and ongoing costs. The result is a optimisation tool that allows skilled planners to:

• Reduce alignment construction cost by more than 20%
• Substantially reduce project planning cycles - by as much as 20%
• Improve community relations by being able to quickly respond to new constraints arising from the consultation process.
• Deliver better environmental outcomes that assist in the protection of sensitive flora and fauna and consider fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

Quantm can utilise data from a digital maps, satellite and aerial photography to develop a programme that can reduce the planning process by months.

Peter Gipps, Manager Research and Development, Quantm said: "One of our clients has estimated that he can input all of the data required to run the Quantm system on a 20km project in just two hours.Then the technology takes over, costing and considering literally millions of alternative alignments to identify a range of the lowest cost routes that meet the constraints and conditions defined by the planner."

The Quantm system can handle an unlimited number of geological strata and calculate such key issues as when to tunnel or when to cut and the height at which a viaduct is less expensive than filling, with a dollar sign attached to ach of its deductions.