Building a railway station in a busy city center

Watch “Moss Station” rise, meet the team and discover how collaborative BIM technology can help manage even the most complex circumstances.

As part of the new 10-kilometer-long double track from Sandbukta to Såstad, which will increase passenger capacity and reduce travel time to Oslo to 30 minutes, a new train station in the heart of Moss was needed. The urban development project scope turned out to be vast. A long concrete tunnel, a day zone with a road system and a station area, a station building located on a bridge above the train tracks—multiple construction elements had to be designed and built in parallel. Of course, traffic and the local community in this bustling city center would not stand still during construction, significantly raising the logistical requirements. Yet, the dense population was not even the biggest challenge.

The team faced extremely challenging ground conditions, as major parts of the project area contain quick clay. This highly sensitive type of clay found below marine level has considerable strength when intact, but an unstable structure. When overloaded, it can collapse and flow like a liquid. These soil characteristics result in numerous specific requirements. There are sequencing constraints, limited flexibility, and very close follow-up is imperative. Bane NOR Project Manager Per Olav Moslet knew he needed a highly capable partner addressing the complex circumstances through state-of-the-art methods. Consulting and engineering company Norconsult was the logical choice, given its strong track record, experience with large-scale, complex projects, and cross-disciplinary expertise.

Bane NOR, in collaboration with NGI (Norwegian Geotechnical Institute), has installed a wide range of digital ground sensors that monitor settlement, deformation, pore pressure, vibrations, and structural movements. This allows Norconsult and all project stakeholders to monitor and track the ground response to construction work. The sensors’ real-time data feeds back into the BIM models, enabling adaptive risk assessment based on real conditions, reducing uncertainty, improving safety margins, and facilitating transparent, data-driven decision-making. A strong source of trust for all stakeholders—especially Moss municipality.

When certain thresholds are exceeded, alerts are triggered, enabling proactive response measures before risks can escalate. “It helps us adapt stabilization strategies, evaluate the effect of ongoing construction activities, and determine acceptable rates of progress,” Rogstad explains. This safety-first approach, initiated by Bane NOR, led to one of the most sensor-equipped sites in Norway, allowing geotechnical engineers to have an ideal level of control and ensure safety for everyone on site. The entire Moss community benefits from this approach, ensuring a safe construction period while enhancing the slope stability for the whole area. “We can display various quality metrics in the BIM environment. This allows us to assess whether there are any weaker zones or areas that may require additional measures,” Rogstad elaborates.

In this unique project, safety cannot be achieved without a downside. “We have quite unique project goals, where we put safety first, and then time and cost,” Project Manager Per Olav Moslet explains. The teams frequently need to adjust their plans based on responses and insights gained during execution, causing delays and rework. However, the use of a shared BIM environment—providing a single source of truth and real-time overview of the entire project—enabled the required flexibility and smooth stakeholder collaboration to adapt quickly, mitigating the inevitably pushed timelines.

Alongside regular cross-disciplinary coordination meetings, a clear governance model within Autodesk Construction Cloud that defines roles and responsibilities was another prerequisite, with multiple stakeholders being involved in the design and construction phases. “As a result, we have fewer conflicts, smoother handovers, and better risk management across all phases,” Norconsult Project Lead Marianne Bjelland states. “We are proud of our strong culture of open communication and trust. It really helps with cross-disciplinary collaboration.”

Norconsult and Bane NOR use digital twins to map and continuously update progress in real time, share 3D visualizations, and display quality metrics. Marius Løvig Husby, Control Engineer at Bane NOR, praises the boost in efficiency the digital twins have been providing over the course of the project, which was especially important due to the busy environment of the construction site. There is not much space to maneuver and a lot of present infrastructure, above and below ground, had to be considered. Using digital twins, possible clashes have been detected in advance, ensuring smooth workflows cutting down on rework and delays, while all stakeholders are kept up to date on new decisions.

Norconsult follows a holistic digital planning strategy that involves architects, infrastructure planners, rail, geotechnics, and MEP professionals. The company relies on interdisciplinary workflows built on the basis of a digital ecosystem, rather than relying on one tool in isolation. Autodesk Construction Cloud provides Norconsult with the necessary BIM environment that can be enhanced by connected digital solutions, as Bjelland tells us. Combining multiple digital tools in parallel workflows allows her and her co-workers to manage complex projects such as “Moss Station”. Moslet agrees: “Autodesk enables us to make better decisions and have better control of on-site operations.”

During the project, the teams have been working with Autodesk Navisworks for coordination, construction sequencing, and clash detection. Autodesk Revit was used for vertical elements such as the station building, structural components, detailed constructions, and architectural design. For horizontal infrastructure such as tracks, earthworks, alignments, and complex groundworks, Autodesk Civil 3D was Norconsult’s solution of choice. Autodesk ReCap served as the tool for processing and managing point clouds from laser scanning, providing accurate as-built documentation.

Project management is being conducted via a custom solution based on Autodesk Platform Services (APS). It was developed by Norconsult to integrate models, real-time sensor data, and project-specific dashboards into one environment.

In cooperation with its renowned clients, Norconsult is building digital competence across all disciplines, exploring AI through pilot projects such as “Moss Station”. The company is developing scalable digital frameworks for future reuse, while strengthening partnerships with technology providers. For a good reason: Bjelland expects AI to become a core driver across the project lifecycle, automating repetitive tasks, improving simulations, supporting predictive maintenance and risk forecasting. Rogstad agrees: “I think AI will benefit construction as a trusted decision-support tool across the complete lifecycle.” The Norconsult team also sees great potential in using AI to raise quality by checking models against standards. 

As Autodesk products such as Autodesk Platform Services, Autodesk Assistant and the new Model Context Protocol (MCP) elevate AI beyond language models into domain-specific tools that work directly with design data, Bjelland is confident Norconsult can lead this change, using its access to some of Norway's largest project portfolios and relying on unrelenting Autodesk support: “Autodesk is a strategic partner for us in technology.” 

The “Moss Station” project demonstrates that even the most challenging infrastructure projects can succeed when digital innovation is combined with deep expertise. By combining BIM technology, real-time sensor networks, and cross-disciplinary collaboration, Norconsult and Bane NOR are delivering a critical piece of transportation infrastructure—and a replicable model for managing complex urban construction. As cities worldwide face similar challenges of building in dense environments with difficult ground conditions, the lessons learned from Moss Station offer a proven pathway forward.