A transport element is a generalization of all transport related objects that move people, animals or goods within a Facility. The IfcTransportElement defines the occurrence of a transport element, that is expressed by the IfcTransportElementType. 

Transport element can describe fixed or non fixed elements, which can either be identified as specified operational assets within a facility or vehicles that interact with the facility as a user or customer. In the case of operational assets, instances of IfcTransportElement can represent individual identifiable vehicles or structures with properties such as serial numbers, registration numbers etc. and be typed accordingly by instances of IfcTransportElementType. 

In the case transport elements that interact as users or customers, such as cars on a road or vessels at a port, IfcTransportElementType is used to define element specifications which are used to design, analyze and provide operational constraints to the facility. 

Depending on local classification systems transport elements and transportation systems in buildings are either considered as part of a built system, or as part of a built service system. Within IFC they are considered as part of a built system and may have to be mapped appropriately. 

IfcTransportElement defines the occurrence of any transportation device, common information about transportation device types (or styles) is handled by IfcTransportElementType. The IfcTransportElementType can establish the common type name, usage (or predefined) type, common material layer set, common set of properties and common shape representations (using IfcRepresentationMap). The IfcTransportElementType is attached using the IfcRelDefinedByType.RelatingType objectified relationship and is accessible by the inverse IsTypedBy attribute. 

If no IfcTransportElementType is attached (i.e. if only occurrence information is given) the PredefinedType should be provided. If set to .USERDEFINED a user-defined value can be provided by the ObjectType attribute. 

The Property Sets for Objects concept template applies to this entity under Pset_TransportElementCommonname as shown in table below:

The IfcTransportElement is placed within the project spatial hierarchy using the objectified relationship IfcRelContainedInSpatialStructure, referring to it by its inverse attribute SELFIfcElement.ContainedInStructure. Subtypes of IfcSpatialStructureElement are valid spatial containers, with IfcBuilding being the default container. 

changes 

• IFC2X_FINAL changes:
  • The attribute PredefinedType (previously OperationType) is made optional.
• IFC4 changes:
  • The last attributes CapacityByWeight and CapacityByNumber are removed, use Pset_TransportElementCommon instead.
  • Name of the OperationType attribute changed to PredefinedType.
• IFC4X3_RC1 changes:
  • Supertype changed from "IfcElement" to "IfcTransportationDevice".