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Consulting engineers and other AEC firms have always had to deliver services far beyond design, but today’s data-driven projects are giving them fresh opportunities to turn client data into something much more sophisticated. 

Delivering interactive GIS maps and dashboards to analyze asset usage and even maintain real-time digital twins has enabled clients to better understand how built assets are constructed and used. While none of these services are directly tied to billable hours, they offer a glimpse into data-driven futures for clients such as utilities and cities: balancing need for everything from energy and sewer system use to managing traffic congestion. Common technologies such as the Python scripting language and NVIDIA graphical processing offer new ways for owners and municipalities to digest and comprehend their own mountains of data.

Clients such as the City of Raleigh, N.C., are taking advantage of new technology from providers NVIDIA and Esri to glean insights from digital twins such as Raleigh In Motion to better understand traffic management.
Digital twin image courtesy of Esri and the City of Raleigh

For their part, some AEC firms are moving from providing drawings and models of construction projects to becoming digital solutions providers for clients’ unique problems. Esri, NVIDIA and Microsoft created a new pilot application for Raleigh, N.C., to better understand traffic flow and its impact on the city’s populace. The program uses artificial intelligence to analyze the massive volumes of data captured by Raleigh’s real-time traffic cameras.

“What we needed to understand was how vehicles are traveling through the intersection, not how many vehicles are in it at any given time,” says Jim Alberque, GIS and emerging technology manager for Raleigh. “My team and I spent research and development time over two years figuring out, ‘could we track trajectories of vehicles through intersections using NVIDIA technology and then feeding it into GIS?’”

The resulting traffic monitoring application allows city officials to overlay current traffic flows through key intersections onto past data. AI technology from NVIDIA’s graphics processing unit channels real-time video from hundreds of cameras around the city. These feeds are then mapped in ArcGIS, Esri’s flagship mapping platform, where city officials can analyze which intersections are congested based on time and day. Indicators on the map turn from green to yellow or red as congestion builds up at intersections. The dashboard can also flag real-time events like stalled vehicles in an intersection that are impacting traffic.

The Digital Resilience and Response System allows the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority to visualize many data sources in a single platform for visibility into how their facilities are performing. Jacobs will design a 1.1-mile ocean outfall replacement for the Mayagüez Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Screenshot courtesy Jacobs Digitial Services, photo courtesy Jacobs

By combining live streaming data via ArcGIS GeoEvent Server with computer vision capabilities from NVIDIA, Raleigh’s digital twin can identify obstructions, allow traffic managers to take steps to reduce congestion and make roads safer for vehicles, bikes and pedestrians. NVIDIA’s DeepStream SDK was able to identify vehicles correctly 95% of the time.

The project also leverages NVIDIA Metropolis and NVIDIA Video Scene Stream, Raleigh’s own blueprints and models and Microsoft Azure Cloud to process video and identify vehicles, bikes and pedestrians in real time.

“We find a new innovation, or a different way to use assets that really helps [our clients] look at what they have in their existing portfolio and use that more effectively.”

 — Shannon Miller, Jacobs President of Strategy, Growth and Digital

Streaming data in real time rather than just looking at historic data gives Raleigh’s Dept. of Transportation the ability to be proactive.

“If an incident like a stalled vehicle is identified, then [computer vision] creates the description, so it’s being able to almost get a first stab at the report that might be created by a human later,” says Brooks Patrick, Esri business development manager for local government. The system was demonstrated at NVIDIA’s GPU Compute conference in 2025.

“At the event, we were getting questions like ‘can you program this to alert us to flooding?’ That was a big one,” says Patrick. “Also, ‘the pedestrians—any near misses between cars and pedestrians?’ [Or], imagine [there is] maybe a new building being built—you can basically track the way the city responds to it and the construction.” 

The system allows users to click on any intersection and see a visual representation of vehicle, pedestrian and bicycle traffic and the extent of congestion for each, via a red, yellow or green circle showing the percentage of traffic at any given time. All of Raleigh’s intersection cameras feed real-time data into the ArcGIS dashboard.

“How we looked at this is, if I’m a traffic engineer, where do I focus my attention right now?” Alberque says. “Everything’s working great over here but look over there. This might require your attention right now.”

Displaying voluminous traffic information in a useful way for clients is a growing service that consulting engineers as well as technology providers are providing to clients.

Champlain Hudson Power Express asked WSP/Power Engineers to help deliver its 400‑mile power transmission project with more than 30 active construction sites. One ArcGIS Enterprise platform united all activities.
Visual dashboard courtesy of WSP/Power Engineers

Jacobs recently launched a cloud-based Flood Platform, for advanced flood modelling. The engineer also used municipal data to develop a sewer strategy for Omaha, Neb., and was able to reduce chemical and energy consumption in a move toward net-zero energy impact in Wilmington, Del. In New York City, the firm uses Intelligent Transport Systems design to enhance regional transportation.

But no project encompasses as much data structuring and delivery as Jacobs’ partnership with Palantir to develop a digital resilience and response system to support operations and planning, response and recovery efforts for the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority. Owner and operator of Puerto Rico’s potable water and wastewater systems, it hired Jacobs in September as program manager for the $27-million replacement of the Mayagüez Ocean Outfall, whose existing pipeline was heavily damaged during Hurricane Maria in 2017.

Using Palantir’s Digital Foundry technology platform, the Jacobs team is delivering advanced sensing, communication, hardware and software technology to create an integrated digital platform to enhance agency awareness. Water service in Puerto Rico has been erratic since the damage from Maria.

The Digital Resilience and Response System leverages connectivity among assets and models system operations, providing the authority with a real-time view of assets’ system status and health. It aims to minimize disruptions to customer service and provide pertinent information to facilitate response by alerting mangers, mobilizing teams and assessing incidents such as storm damage.

The system is being designed to equip the agency with real-time data on water supply, sewage flow and infrastructure status. This application is the largest implementation of its kind of an intelligent operations and maintenance platform, a DigitalOneWater dashboard that provides direct and predictive guidance to agency operations and maintenance staff.

“We started to see this trend really amp up about five years ago, when we set forth our strategy with our initial investment in PA Consulting,” says Shannon Miller, president of strategy, growth and digital at Jacobs, which acquired the remaining share of PA Consulting in January. “We are trying to move further up in that consulting and advisory space. Both of our organizations have been rooted in deeply understanding the science and technology behind our clients’ business, and then we shape and form ourselves around what they’re trying to accomplish.”

Miller says the shift to advising clients further upstream is an area where Jacobs and PA Consulting have been able to differentiate themselves, whether it’s delivering services such as thw Digital Resilience and Response System or data analysis to a private company. Miller stresses that while there are inherent risks to deliverables that are not billed by the hour spent in design or by traditional metrics such as construction put-in-place, the potential benefits of data analysis services are too big to ignore.

“We find a new innovation, or a different way to use assets that really helps [our clients] look at what they have in their existing portfolio and use that more effectively,” she says. “That’s where we’ve seen really huge opportunity in the digital and data space, through digital twinning, through leveraging data to make smarter decisions.”

Champlain Hudson Power Express is a 400‑mile power transmission line being built from the Canadian border to New York City, running both above and below grade, to carry hydroelectric power. Blackstone-owned Transmission Developers turned to WSP and its recently acquired unit Power Engineers for project management and technical coordination on the complex project that is set to complete this year.

“Bringing together a field data collection app that’s linked to an automated reporting system, and then showing all these data points that were collected in the field in a dashboard, that’s really what our team does.”

—Chris Bente, WSP Vice President and Senior Technical Principal

With more than 30 active construction sites and complex right‑of‑way conditions across roads, railways and waterways, the project drove a move to digital processes for monitoring and oversight. Reliance on manual reporting methods was creating data silos, and leading to inaccurate information and communication delays between the field and management. Real-time project visibility was needed.

“Our team is typically brought in to help provide those types of workflow solutions,” says Chris Bente, a WSP vice president and senior technical principal. “Bringing together a field data collection app that’s linked to an automated reporting system, and then showing all these data points that were collected in the field in a dashboard, that’s really what our team does.”

A centralized project space was built using ArcGIS Hub as a single entry point for all geospatial data, dashboards, and applications. The WSP/Power team deployed ArcGIS Experience Builder to build a project mapping interface that organized layers by discipline, allowing users to visualize terrestrial and submarine environments of the project route.

An ArcGIS Survey123 reporting tool allowed field inspectors to make a digital record of site activities, environmental conditions, safety issues and even pay item quantities directly from their mobile devices—eliminating inconsistencies caused by manual data entry. The application was refined over several iterations, reflecting direct feedback from field teams.

“The applications themselves, they were not that difficult to make,” says Sherry Shariat, WSP vice president and technical director for geospatial services. “It was mostly the coordination between us and client to figure out what they actually want; what parameters they want to capture; what parameters they want to visualize—that took some time,” she adds. “As soon as we got the output of the coordinations, then building the application, probably each application took less than two weeks. But [for] the whole project to [be] written down, managing what should be captured—it took probably six months.”

To improve oversight, WSP developed an automated review and approval workflow using the ArcGIS API for Python. Reports were automatically routed to construction managers and senior managers, triggering email notifications via the Python API. Approved reports were securely stored in SharePoint, and statuses were updated automatically within ArcGIS. Approved data immediately appeared in the project dashboard, eliminating manual handling and reducing construction turnaround times.