BIM–digital twin integration for construction safety: Mechanisms, maturity pathways, and socio-technical progression

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Abstract
The construction industry continues to experience high rates of serious injury and fatality worldwide, motivating an increasing interest in advanced digitalization strategies that combine building information modeling (BIM) with digital twin (DT) capabilities. By linking static semantic site models with continuous field data, these systems offer a powerful approach to proactive risk management. However, while individual remote sensing and predictive analytics components are well researched, a unified understanding of how these BIM and DT safety systems are integrated remains critically limited. Specifically, there is a clear need to understand how system capabilities evolve across different maturity stages and what underlying factors drive this progression across the construction lifecycle. This paper presents a comprehensive scoping review of BIM and DT integration for construction safety management across the entire project lifecycle. Using a tiered evidence strategy and structured thematic coding, the existing literature is synthesized through three main analytical lenses: integration mechanisms and data exchange patterns, maturity characteristics and capability horizons, and the socio-technical factors that systematically influence maturity transitions. This review clarifies the dominant architectural integration approaches and maps current proof-of-concept efforts against the requirements for more predictive and governance-ready safety twins. The findings indicate that most implementations remain at the interactive monitoring stage, with predictive capability emerging mainly in data-rich contexts and autonomous adaptation not yet realized. Furthermore, it identifies persistent bottlenecks in data interoperability and real-time processing that currently hinder widespread industry adoption. Finally, the study proposes a focused research agenda designed to help transition these intelligent monitoring systems from isolated prototypes to robust, scalable applications suitable for safety-critical construction environments.

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