ACROSS the city, more than 9,000 roads, as well as a large number of bridges, culverts, tunnels and other pieces of infrastructure will be maintained with the help of an intelligent online platform, which was officially launched recently after a monthlong trial operation, Shenzhen Economic Daily reported Tuesday.

With the help of a high-precision satellite map, tilt-shift photography, vehicle-borne lasers and other mapping technologies, the platform “copies” real-world features such as roads, bridges, culverts, tunnels, retaining walls and slopes to the digital world, and endows them with real-world attributes in the virtual world.

The platform not only contains the basic information of each of these features, but also establishes a digital model for each component of each feature, such as a certain safety island, a protective fence and a road sign at a specific location on a road.

For instance, in actual practice, inspectors can use the 2-D or 3-D model, select a specific component of any feature and double-click to check the condition of the component.

When the component is found to require maintenance or a minor repair, the construction workers can quickly locate the component under the guidance of the model and the map.

The platform is expected to improve efficiency and realize closed-loop management and maintenance of urban transportation features. 

(Zhang Yu)