BIM technology is increasingly widely used in the transportation infrastructure industry, but its explicit value is limited, and its role played does not match with the industry expectations and government policy guidance. Aiming at these problems, the BIM technology application system in the whole life cycle of transportation infrastructure design, construction, operation and maintenance is sorted out through the analysis and thinking about the former BIM technology application and the full-process BIM consulting projects. And the key factors of BIM technology application in the whole life cycle such as BIM standard, data transfer and platform relationship are introduced to try to sum up the role and explicit value that BIM can play in the whole life cycle of the project.