STATUS app: A mobile data collection tool for buildings adjacent to tunneling works

Abstract

In urban areas, tunneling works inevitably interfere with the adjacent buildings. In the preliminary design stage, designers usually do not inspect buildings adjacent to the construction sites, because these activities are often too expensive. This paper presents the STATUS app, an Android application for mobile data collection. It was developed and tested by Geofunction Srls before the beginning of the tunneling works for the railway doubling in Cefalu (Italy). The system assists technicians during visual inspections and records the pre-existing architectural and/or structural damages in buildings adjacent to construction sites in real time. The output of the data collection is an offcial report printed and countersigned in situ by the technicians and the owners of the inspected property. The application was used for 1189 inspections inside 96 buildings. The aim of the paper is to show the benefits achieved through the use of STATUS app. It is also useful for several purposes: external risk assessment, damage prevention, damage reporting, preventing future legal disputes, and the free-rider problems. The application is released under closed-source license.