Digitalization and Sustainability in Linear Projects Trends: A Bibliometric Analysis

Linear infrastructure projects, including roads, tunnels, and railroads, are vital for the socioeconomic advancement of regions and nations. Given their large scale, these projects require significant resources, leading to substantial environmental impacts and demanding the collaboration of professionals from multiple disciplines. In this context, it is essential to adopt strategies that favor digitalization to enhance the sustainability of such projects by automating the analysis of various alternatives. Despite the proliferation of studies in this area, there needs to be more research synthesizing the main trends in digitalization and sustainability in linear projects. Given this knowledge gap, this study focuses on identifying and analyzing the main trends in digitalization and sustainability in the context of linear infrastructure projects. To this end, a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of a selected set of papers has been carried out. The research method follows five main steps: (1) scope definition, (2) selection of bibliometric analysis techniques, (3) data collection, (4) bibliometric analysis execution, and (5) evidence analysis and synthesis. An analysis of 419 documents was done, applying performance analysis and scientific mapping techniques. The results reveal that trends in digitalization and sustainability in linear projects can be categorized into five main clusters: road construction, road administration, life cycle analysis, digitalization of linear infrastructure, and sustainable development, leading this line of research towards computer-aided design technologies such as BIM, GIS, and computer vision to study sustainable development throughout the whole life cycle analysis of linear infrastructure projects.