North West Rail Link
Client: Thiess John Holland
Background
In the early days of Virtual Reality, Real Serious Games had been conducting Research & Development (R&D) on how this technology could be used to benefit the commercial industry for education and training. Virtual Reality not only offered superior immersion in comparison to conventional 2D screens, but also provided the users an opportunity to experience things as they would in the real world. This lead to the Australia’s first commercial application to train TBM Workers for the North West Rail Link project.
Australia's First Commercial VR Training Solution
The construction environment, the tunnel boring machine, and other assets were digitally built using Real Serious Games 4D Real-Time Engine. This digital environment allows for virtual reality and desktop simulated training to integrate into the Certificate IV in Civil Operations.
Initially, the simulated digital training experience was provided to 200unskilled TBM operations personnel. The evidence of the benefits of this digital training was easily seen as the on-the-job in-field TBM training and commissioning component was reduced from 6 weeks to 2 weeks (4weeks ahead of schedule).
Further validation of the benefits came when the time came to move this personnel from the digital training environment to the real TBM. Our client reported the transition as seamless, the best validation that the virtual training had been successful.
With the virtual reality enhanced training,
200 personnel completed the full Certificate IV in Civil Construction
. Additionally, the training was so effective that the digital asset and delivery training was converted into two other resources:
(i) A tunnel induction module; and
(ii) Emergency evacuation training.
The digital VR induction and emergency evacuation experiences were
delivered to over 2000 staff and workers in both Thiess John Holland and the emergency services agencies.
