During the last decade, different remote sensing technologies have proven their capabilities to effectively extract both geometric and semantic information from the road and railway transport infrastructures. Nowadays, they are widely used in many civil engineering applications. Alongside with the research and development on remote sensing data processing, there is an increasing need of more efficient standardization, management and interoperability of the infrastructure data. In this respect, Infrastructure Information Modeling (IIM) is slowly gaining visibility as an analogy for Building Information Modeling (BIM), that is, a data management process of an infrastructure from its design phase and during its entire life cycle. While remote sensing technologies are able to efficiently collect data at large scale, IIM should allow data interoperability for a standardized access to asset management databases, improving the efficiency of the information management, maintenance works, and risk assessment of the built environment of the infrastructure. Therefore, there exists a clear symbiosis among both concepts, with remote sensing (i.e. laser scanning, satellite sensors) collecting the as-built data needed for an efficient implementation of an information model of the infrastructure. This Special Issue aims to collect new knowledge on three main aspects: Remote sensing data processing methodologies and applications with a special focus on road and railway infrastructure modeling (this aspect could cover, but is not limited to: Evaluation of different sensors and technologies for specific infrastructure analysis purposes; Automated processing of 3D and 2D remotely sensed infrastructure data, to extract meaningful information for infrastructure models; this may include novel artificial intelligence approaches; Big data management, organization and visualization); New Infrastructure Information Modeling approaches (including but not limited to: Reviews of current and future trends; Digital twins of infrastructure assets; Applications of existing standards); Novel approaches that effectively integrate remotely sensed data with IIM, following existing standards.
Keywords: Infrastructure Information Models; Infrastructure BIM; Point cloud data processing; Satellite data processing; Infrastructure monitoring and maintenance; Digital Twin.