Sydney Trains nominated for global tech award

Staff WriterOctober 9, 2013, 12:00 amOctober 9, 2013

Sydney Trains has been nominated for a global award for innovation in government, for its paperless operating system, Virtual Plan Room. Bentley Systems, a software provider specialising in solutions for sustaining infrastructure, last week announced the finalists for its 2013 Be Inspired Awards competition. Sydney Trains earned a nomination in the Innovation in Government category, and will compete for the gong with London’s Crossrail project design software, and Mexican company Innovacin Sistemas y Proyectos, which developed a new geospatial mapping system for Cancun’s municipal system. Bentley says the Innovation in Government category is for projects that have demonstrated excellence in local, state, provincial, federal and national government projects. A representative from Sydney Trains filled Rail Express in on the details of the Virtual Plan Room (VPR). “The VPR provides a single and consistent environment in managing and controlling engineering documents, drawings and computer aided-design (CAD) files,” Sydney Trains said. “Its library-like services offer version control, with check-in/check-out facilities, audit trails and security features to manage access and editing, document storage and classification for around 2.8 million documents, drawings and plans. “The number of documents in Planroom continues to grow at a rate of 20,000 a year.”&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp Bentley COO Malcolm Walter said the company was pleased with this year’s batch of nominations. “The one thing outside of our control was, of course, the Be Inspired Awards nominations,” he said. “But as always, our users came through for us – with remarkable projects that tested the adjudicative prowess of our esteemed jury members. I congratulate all of the finalists, and look forward to their inspiring presentations in the last leg of this very special competition.” The winners of the Be Inspired Awards will be announced in London later this month, at The Year in Infrastructure 2013 Conference, which will take place between October 29 and 31. “This global gathering of leading executives in the world of infrastructure design, construction, and operations features a series of presentations and interactive sessions exploring the intersection of technology and business drivers, and how they are shaping the future of infrastructure delivery and investment returns,” Bentley said. More information on the conference can be found <a href="http://www.bentley.com/en-US/Corporate/Year%20in%20Infrastructure%20Conference/year%20in%20infrastructure/">here</a>.