Analytical review and evaluation of civil information modeling

•171 industry cases and 62 academic papers on CIM from 2002 to 2014 were evaluated.•Only a few CIM uses associated with detailed design phase and operation and maintenance phase are conducted.•LoD100 and LoD500 CIMs are not common; LoD400 models are the most prevalent.•Data schema for civil infrastructures other than bridges, roads and tunnels are lacking.•Recommendations on CIM for different civil infrastructure categories are provided.

Building information modeling (BIM) has been widely adopted in the building industry. However, the use of BIM in civil infrastructure facilities, sometimes referred to as civil information modeling (CIM) has been slow in its application. Industry and academia are increasingly putting effort into CIM study and implementation, but so far there has been no comprehensive review of their effort in this regard. This paper presents a framework to evaluate the current practices of CIM adoption for various civil infrastructure facilities. In this study, civil infrastructure facilities were divided into nine categories for evaluation and the effort with regard to CIM adoption for each civil infrastructure category was evaluated in six aspects. Based on the evaluation and comparison results of 171 case studies and 62 academic papers on CIM, research gaps were identified and recommendations were made. For example, the findings show that data schema development for civil infrastructure facilities other than bridges, roads, and tunnels are lacking. The results and research gaps revealed by this study are useful for both researchers and practitioners.