The Bentley Software Suite Driving France’s Greenest Infrastructure

• 13 February 2026
• Construction Focus
• 839 Views

France firm Egis has been named a winner at the 2025 Bentley Year in Infrastructure (YII) and the Going Digital Awards for its work on the Canal Seine-Nord Europe, a project poised to redefine European logistics and environmental sustainability.

By “going digital,” Egis didn’t just design a waterway; they optimized a legacy. Here is how the specific tools in their Bentley toolkit delivered measurable breakthroughs.

The “Single Source of Truth”: ProjectWise

The backbone of the project was ProjectWise, a cloud-based collaboration platform that served as the “Common Data Environment” (CDE). For a project involving 370 users and 1.2 terabytes of data, email was banned in favor of this central hub.

This method eliminated “information silos,” ensuring every engineer and stakeholder worked from the most current file. A staggering 40% increase in overall productivity and a 60% reduction in the time it took to generate complex federated models.

Precision Engineering: MicroStation & OpenRoads

To handle the intricate geometry of seven massive locks and 62 road/rail reconnections, Egis utilized MicroStation and OpenRoads.

These tools allowed for “parallel engineering.” Instead of waiting for one department to finish, hydraulics, geotechnical, and road teams worked simultaneously within the same 3D BIM model.

Automated clash detection identified design conflicts in the virtual world before they could become million-euro mistakes on the construction site.

Winning Public Trust: Bentley LumenRT

Infrastructure projects often face local opposition, but Egis used LumenRT to bridge the communication gap. This software transformed technical CAD data into cinematic, real-time visualizations. It added “digital nature”—moving water, swaying trees, and realistic lighting—to the models.

Stakeholders could virtually “walk through” the project, seeing exactly how the canal would blend into the 1,200 hectares of environmental development. This transparency was key to securing approvals for sensitive areas like the Somme River aqueduct.

After the completion in 2030, the canal is expected to remove 1 million heavy trucks from French roads annually, save 50 million tons of CO₂ over its first 40 years of operation, and increase cargo capacity, allowing a single barge to carry as many as 220 trucks.

• ProjectWise
• MicroStation
• Bentley Systems
• OpenRoads
• LumenRT
• YII
• Egis