A modern survey method for determining live loads based on multi-source and open-access data on the Internet

Sufficient survey data are required to describe the stochastic behaviors of live loads. However, due to manual and on-site operation required by traditional survey methods, traditional surveys face challenges like occupant resistance, high costs, and long implementation periods. This study proposes a new survey method to access live load data online and automatically. Required samples are acquired from multi-source, open-access and dynamically updated data on the Internet. The change intervals, geometrical dimensions and object quantities are obtained from transaction information, building attributes and virtual reality models on real estate websites, respectively. The object weights are collected from commodity information on e-commerce websites. The integration of the aforementioned data allows for the extraction of necessary statistics to describe a live load process. The proposed method is applied to a live load survey in China, covering 20040 m², with around 90000 samples acquired for object weights and load changes. The survey results reveal that about 70%–80% of the amplitude statistics are attributable to 1/6 of the total object types.