Bentley Systems Announces the Availability of OpenBuildings Station Designer

EXTON, Pa. – May 13, 2019 – Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading global provider of comprehensive software and digital twins services for advancing the design, construction, and operations of infrastructure, today announced the general availability of OpenBuildings Station Designer, a new multidisciplinary application for the design, analysis, visualization, and simulation of new or operating rail, metro or other transit stations. Advancing beyond generic BIM applications, OpenBuildings Station Designer was developed specifically for rail and transit station modeling, with asset-specific content and workflows. OpenBuildings Station Designer streamlines and automates design collaboration design between architectural, mechanical, electrical, and structural disciplines sharing modeling, clash resolution, and documentation capabilities.

OpenBuildings Station Designer incorporates LEGION, the industry-leading simulation software, acquired by Bentley late in 2018, for fully modeling pedestrian traffic to optimize footfall, wayfinding, crowd management, safety, and security. With the integrated capability to model and simulate pedestrian scenarios, OpenBuildings Station Designer helps designers to improve the functional use of space, passenger throughput, and the pedestrian experience.

By virtue of Bentley’s open modeling environment, OpenBuildings Station Designer enables iterative digital workflows spanning OpenRail and OpenRoads to assure comprehensive and coordinated engineering modeling of transportation assets and modes. Within Bentley’s OpenRail Connected Data Environment (CDE), the Components Center cloud service contributes to station project quality and integrity through pre-populated digital components which include signaling equipment, escalators, turnstiles, public address systems, signage, kiosks, and more.

OpenBuildings Station Designer breaks down barriers among stakeholders and increases the value and fitness-for-purpose of design deliverables through its:

• included LEGION pedestrian simulation;
• integration with OpenRail for rail design;
• integration with OpenRoads for roads design;
• clash resolution;
• multi-discipline documentation;
• ready-to-use catalogs for functional spaces and equipment; and
• enlivened visualizations.

Santanu Das, SVP for Bentley’s design integration business unit, said, “OpenBuildings Station Designer reflects our goal of advancing BIM through digital twins, by including within its multi-discipline design scope the integral simulation of pedestrian traffic outcomes. With such insight, the designer can anticipate pedestrian bottlenecks and modify the layout to improve the station efficiency and safety, ultimately improving the passenger experience. Accordingly, we expect OpenBuildings Station Designer to also benefit existing rail and transit stations for renovations and upgrades, increasing their capacity and throughput.”

Mike Nicholson, associate for Steer Group, said, "For over a decade Steer has successfully been delivering a wide range of pedestrian modeling studies around the world utilizing LEGION. We are now looking forward to using the full BIM capabilities of OpenBuildings Station Designer."