ACCIONA Australia is using Matterport to capture and share site conditions while delivering major rail infrastructure upgrades through the Southern Program Alliance, as part of the Victorian Government’s Level Crossing Removal Project.
Understanding every hour of possession downtime carries a cost – and every missed inspection creates risk and rework – the company sought a solution to streamline the delivery of level crossing removals and station rebuilds.
To support Melbourne’s major rail infrastructure upgrade, Alex Wong, senior digital engineer, together with survey manager Matthew Jeffery at ACCIONA Australia, says daily capture across a 60-day site possession using traditional LiDAR was not achievable, but Matterport “made it routine”.
The Southern Program Alliance is delivering major rail infrastructure upgrades as part of the Victorian Government’s Level Crossing Removal Project, which is removing 110 level crossings across Melbourne. ACCIONA is the constructor within the alliance, alongside WSP as designer and Metro Trains Melbourne as rail operator, with the Level Crossing Removal Project as client.
Faced with compressed timelines and complex coordination challenges, ACCIONA found the traditional LiDAR and manual photography workflows infrastructure delivery teams have long relied on simply couldn’t keep pace.
Conventional LiDAR scans were time-intensive, taking several days to complete and process before reaching decision-makers.
Turnaround during critical windows was another challenge, with daily progress capture across 60-day possession periods nearly unachievable using traditional methods.
Workflows were also manual and fragmented, with completion teams capturing, cataloguing and documenting thousands of images just to verify progress.
Restricted access and safety constraints added further complexity. Underground and live-rail environments demanded shutdowns and careful coordination for every inspection, increasing both risk and delay.
Visibility was also limited for distributed teams, with engineers and stakeholders working interstate having no consistent way to see site conditions without travelling to them.
ACCIONA deployed Matterport as part of an as-built capture pilot, digitising site conditions and reshaping project workflows from the ground up.
With Matterport, full site environments can be captured in a single day using compact, lightweight hardware and an intuitive workflow.
Cloud-based processing further simplifies delivery, with data automatically processed and available the next day with zero manual post-processing.
Matterport also gives engineers, project managers and completion teams virtual site access, allowing them to navigate sites remotely without setting foot on site.
The data supports concept development, tendering, construction progress monitoring and completion verification across the project lifecycle.
Matterport also provides 3D spatial context and point cloud outputs, with 360 point cloud data enabling alignment with design models and improved spatial coordination.
For construction progress and completion, Matterport replaces manual photo documentation with immersive digital walkthroughs, allowing completion engineers to verify installation status, track construction stages and close punch list items directly from the model, with no manual logging required.
For remote collaboration and access, teams across Melbourne and interstate can work from a single source of truth, reviewing sites virtually, reducing travel and logistical overhead, and avoiding unnecessary disruption to live train operations through remote inspections.
Matterport also supports tendering and pre-construction planning by allowing stakeholders to explore complex or restricted environments without needing full site access. This gives contractors accurate spatial context for scope planning and supports stronger coordination across multiple contractors.
For safety and risk reduction, fewer physical visits into hazardous, access-controlled zones reduce approval delays and exposure to risk, with remote teams able to reference accurate 3D data instead of stepping on site.
For historical and compliance documentation, Matterport captures detailed before and after records for heritage-listed assets such as Yarraville Station, supporting both compliance requirements and long-term asset history.
The results speak for themselves. ACCIONA achieved 60 to 70 per cent faster on-site capture. When paired with fully automated cloud processing, the company realised up to an 80 per cent total reduction in capture and processing effort, cutting an average of three to four operator-days per site down to under one.
Beyond capture, the biggest shift came in processing. Previously, teams had to manually process scan data, often requiring overnight runs and monitoring, with rework potentially causing further delays. Sites that once took two to three days to scan with one or two operators, followed by manual processing before delivery, are now captured in a single day and ready for stakeholders the next morning. This combination of faster capture and zero-touch processing resulted in about 80 per cent total effort savings, making even high-frequency capture (for example, daily during 60-day possession windows) feasible.
The need to capture progress repeatedly over short construction windows was a key driver for adopting Matterport. During critical construction periods, teams needed to capture progress daily over a 60-day window, something Wong describes as “literally impossible” using conventional methods due to time constraints.
By simplifying the workflow, teams can quickly scan entire environments – including stations, tunnels and surrounding areas – in a fraction of the time. Even large sites, such as train stations with hundreds of scan points, can be captured efficiently in a single workflow. This speed enables more frequent and consistent documentation, which in turn improves visibility across construction stages, from pre-surface works to final finishes.
Beyond efficiency, the impact has included closer, ultra-high-resolution inspection of assets, stronger confidence in decision-making and clearer communication among stakeholders across the program.
As Alex Wong puts it, the program now has one consistent, spatially accurate view of the project, something that was rarely achieved this effectively before.
Book a free Matterport demo and discover how digital twins and reality capture can bring greater speed, clarity and confidence to construction delivery.
