DB InfraGO | Bahnallianz Lübeck-Lensahn

Developing Digital Solutions for Large Infrastructure Projects through Geospatial Information Systems (GIS)

Description of the company

The "Bahnallianz Lübeck–Lensahn" (BALL) is realized by DB InfraGO in close partnership with several planning and construction firms. It is a key part of the German hinterland connection to the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel, which will create a direct rail link between Germany and Denmark. The connection will reduce travel times between Hamburg and Copenhagen to approximately 2.5 hours and strengthen the European passenger and freight rail network.

To support this goal, the BALL project is upgrading the railway corridor between Lübeck and Lensahn by increasing capacity, improving operational reliability, and preparing the infrastructure for future international rail traffic.

The project covers both planning and construction and follows an alliance-based delivery approach that promotes close collaboration between designers, engineers, and construction contractors from an early stage. It brings together multiple organizations and stakeholders from various disciplines, including engineering consultants, planners, construction companies, environmental specialists, and project management teams. This integrated way of working aims to optimize project delivery, improve constructability, reduce risks, and enable efficient decision-making throughout the project lifecycle.

To support collaboration and data-driven decision-making, the project is investing in digital solutions that connect information from different systems and make it accessible to project stakeholders in an intuitive and efficient way.

Situation

Large infrastructure projects involve thousands of assets, documents, plans, and datasets that are managed by different disciplines and organizations. While much of this information has a spatial component, it is often stored in separate systems and therefore difficult to access, analyze, and utilize across teams.

The BALL project has established a central GIS-Portal that provides a common geographic view of project information. However, there is significant potential to further develop innovative applications and workflows that improve transparency, automate processes, and support decision-making throughout the project lifecycle.

Problem

Project stakeholders require efficient access to integrated information in order to make informed decisions. However, data is often distributed across multiple systems, formats, and organizational boundaries.

This can lead to:

• Time-consuming information retrieval
  Limited transparency across disciplines
• Manual and repetitive data handling
• Challenges in linking spatial and non-spatial information
• Reduced opportunities for automation and advanced analytics

The challenge is therefore to identify innovative ways to connect, visualize, analyze, and utilize project data to create measurable value for project teams.

Aims of the project

The aim of the project is to further develop the BALL GIS-Portal by transforming user requirements into practical, high-value GIS solutions that support planning, construction, and project management activities.

The student team will work closely with the GIS team and project stakeholders to understand existing challenges, identify improvement opportunities, and develop concepts for new GIS use cases and functionalities. Depending on the selected topic, the outcome may include a concept, prototype and the implementation within the GIS- Portal.

The student team will:

• Analyze user requirements and business needs from different project disciplines
• Identify opportunities to improve existing workflows through GIS-based solutions
• Design and evaluate new GIS use cases and functionalities
• Assess technical feasibility and expected project benefits
• Develop a prototype and an implementation concept
• Implement selected solutions or functionalities in collaboration with the project team
• Present developments

The project will demonstrate how geospatial technologies can improve transparency, collaboration, and data-driven decision-making in a large and complex infrastructure project while ensuring that future developments are aligned with the actual needs of end users.

Scopes

The exact topic will be refined together with the student team at project start. Potential focus areas include:

Digitalization and Data Integration

• Connecting information from different project systems
• Data harmonization and integration concepts
• Digital workflows for infrastructure projects

GIS and Spatial Analytics

• Interactive map-based applications
• Spatial decision-support tools
• Visualization of complex project information

Artificial Intelligence and Automation

• AI-supported data analysis
• Automated data quality checks
• Intelligent information retrieval and classification

User Experience and Collaboration

• Improving accessibility of project information
• User-centered design approaches
• Collaboration tools for multidisciplinary teams

Expected outputs may include:

• User requirement specification
• GIS use case concept and solution design
• Prototype or implemented GIS Portal enhancement
• Documentation of the developed solution
• Final presentation and demonstration
• Recommendations for integration into the future development roadmap of the BALL GIS Portal

Target group (students)

The project is suitable for advanced Bachelor (4th Semester) and Master students from disciplines such as:

• Computer Science
• Data Science
• Civil Engineering
• Environmental Engineering
• Water and Environmental Engineering
• Information and Communication Systems
• Electrical Engineering and Information Technology
• Mechanical Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering and Management
• International Management and Engineering
• Logistics, Infrastructure and Mobility
• Engineering Science
• Computational Methods and Machine Learning in Engineering

Beneficial:

• experience in geographic information systems, programming and data science
• interest in digital construction projects 

Interdisciplinary teams are strongly encouraged. Students from related engineering, data science, and technology-oriented disciplines are also welcome.

Dates
Please save these dates: Fishing for Experience Termine

Registration
You can apply for Fishing for Experience online.