Between the Poles

Increased urbanization is creating megaregions

I've blogged about the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor, (DMIC) a huge US$ 90 billion project 1,483 km in length linking Delhi and Mumbai.   The objective of the DMIC is to create a base for economic development by providing  access to the best state-of-the-art infrastructure. This project includes nine large Industrial zones of about 200-250 km²., a high speed freight line, three ports, six airports and a 4000 MW power plant.  An influence region of 150 km on either side of the freight line comprises the DMIC.  It strikes me that what is being created is a megaregion, a concept that is getting a lot of attention in the United States,

A megaregion is a new scale of geography that blurs the traditional boudaries between metropolitan regions, like what the DMIIC is doing with respect to Mumbai, Delhi and other smaller cities.  These population centers include Interlocking economic systems, shared natural resources and ecosystems, and common transportation systems. Population growth and increasing urbanization are the driving forces behind megaregions.

America2050 has defined 11 megaregions in the United States.  Megaregions are defined by relationships that define a common interest..  According to Amerca2500 the five major categories of relationships that define megaregions are:

• Environmental systems and topography
• Infrastructure systems
• Economic linkages
• Settlement patterns and land use
• Shared culture and history

Most of a country's rapid population growth and economic expansion is expected to occur in these megaregions.

These aggregations are so large that they need to be modeled and managed as smart cities.  For example, the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) is intended to be comprised of seven smart cities.  According to URENIO these smart cities are compact, vertical developments.  They use digital technology to create smart grids for better management of civic infrastructure.  They have an efficient public transportation system.  They recycle sewage water for industrial use.  Green spaces, cycle tracks and easy accessibility to goods, services and activities are designed to foster a sense of community..  They have underground utility corridors for parking, sewage disposal and communication lines.  Public transport is available within a 10-minute walk from home or office.

North American BIM adoption reached 71% in 2012

Over the past five years the processes and technologies of building information modeling (BIM) have been transforming the construction industry.  First architects and to a lesser extent engineers, and now increasingly contractors are adopting BIM to reduce risk and increase margins.  There are signs that owners are also realizing benefits from BIM and that operations and maintenance which are responsible for about 80% of a building's lifetime cost may be the part of the lifecycle of a building where BIM provides the largest benefits.  Typical applications where BIM has been applied include automating clash detection, quantity takeoff. and change propagation; reducing data redundancy; improving collaboration among design teams; construction scheduling; automating bill of materials and job costing; and using 3D visualization to  involve non-technical stakeholders in the design process.

BIM and Geospatial

Several years ago, in an award winning paper at a conference organised by Britain’s Association for Geographic Information (AGI), Ann Kemp, then head of GIS at Atkins Global, the design and engineering firm, asked the question ‘BIM isn’t geospatial -- or is it?’ and then argued that integration of geospatial and BIM was essential to address the challenges of the 21st century.  Kemp wasn’t the first one to speak on this. The need to integrate geospatial and BIM has been gaining traction for some time now and government mandated energy efficiency for buildings is a major driver of BIM/geospatial convergence.

BIM in the construction industry

McGraw-Hill Construction has conducted a survey of the use of BIM processes and technologies in the construction industry in 2007, 2009 and 2012.  The most recent report called "The Business Value of BIM in North America: 2012" involved an online survey that was completed by 582 respondents from North America in August to September, 2012.  The companies invited to participate came from McGraw-Hill Construction's own databases as well as from industry associations including AGC, AIA, ASA, ASCE, CMAA, COAA, DBIA, NIBS, SMACNA & SMPS.

Workng Definition of BIM

In the survey the working defintion of “BIM” that was "broadly the creation and use of digital models and related collaborative processes between companies to leverage the value of the models."  The definition was intended to differentiate BIM from CAD.  It also was intended to be inclusive, to include users not just model authors.  Respondents were classified as BIM users or non-users.  By non-users was meant "not engaging with BIM at all”.   BIM users included a broad range of users including model authors and users who used models for analysis or simulation, but did not author them.

Repondents' companies were classified into five categories, architects (building and interior), engineers (structural, mechanical, and others), contractors (general and trade), owners, and others. Of the 582 respondents, the company breakdown was

• 7 % owners
• 39% contractors - broad array of contractors
• 21% engineers - mostly structural and mechanical
• 33% architects - mostly building architects

Key trends in BIM in the construction industry

Adoption

Overall Adoption of BIM has increased from 17% in 2007 to 71% in 2012, representing 45% growth over the last 3 years.  In 2012 adoption by all categories of company increased, but contractors in particular saw increased adoption (74%) exceeding that of  architects (70%).

Expertise level and experience

The percentage of very heavy users increased from 27% in 2009 to 39% in 2012, and is projected to increase to 58% by 2014.  The percentage of very heavy users is forecasted to double over the next 5 years.  The percentage of highly experienced users (5 or more years) more than doubled from 2009 to 2012.

Perceived Return on investment (ROI)

Most repondents reported a positive return on investment in BIM with owners, contractors and archtects reporting the highest proportion of positive ROI. 

• Owners 67%
• Contractors 74%
• Engineers 37%
• Architects 65%

A significant proportion of contractors (7%) and architects (8%) report an ROI of over 100%.

Internal benefits of BIM

The most important internal benefits of adopting BIM reported by the respondents were

• Reduced errors and omissions in documents
• Marketing new business to new clients
• Maintaining repeat business with past clients
• Reducing rework
• Offering new services
• Reducing cycle time of specific workflows
• Reducing overall project duration
• Increased profits
• Reduced construction cost
• Fewer claims/litigation
• Recruting and retention of staff

In 2012 the largest increases over 2009 were Increased profits, maintaining clients, reducing project duration and fewer claims.

BIM for operations and maintenance

A small but significant percentage of owners are using models for building system operation analysis, maintenance scheduling, asset and space management.

Related to this, about 60% of contractors report medium to high demand from owners for as-built record models.

Landsat 8 imagery of Elbe river flooding

There's a very interesting comparison from the NASA Earth Obervatory of Landat 8 imagery showing flooding on the Elbe in Germany.

Image  1 is a natural-color, pan-sharpened image of the Elbe River near Wittenberg, Germany, obtained by Landsat 8 on May 6, 2013.   Image 2 is from June 7, 2013, which shows flooding of the Elbe.

If you look closely at Image 1 you can make out a jagged pattern along the river which is often a symptom of a processing error.  A recent blog post from the NASA Earth Obveratory explains that in this case this is not a processing artifact, but real structures along the river which they were able to verify by looking at among other things high resolution imagery on Google Earth.

Cumulative smart grid revenue 2013 to 2020 projected to reach $461 billion

I blogged recently about a report from Memoori, a UK research firm, called “The Smart Grid Business 2012 to 2017”, which analyzes global smart grid-related sales. Its research has identified some interesting trends in the current smart grid market.  In the last 3 years Memoori estimates that the world smart grid-related sales has more than doubled from $16.2 billion in 2010 to $36.5 in 2012. 40% of this is smart meters

A recent report from Navigant Research says that the global smart grid technologies market amounted to more than $33 billion in revenue in 2012.   Navigant is projecting that the market for smart grid technologies will reach $73 billion in annual revenue by the end of 2020.  The cumulative total for 2013 to 2020 is projected to reach  totaling $461 billion.

The report identified five segments: transmission upgrades, substation automation, distribution automation, smart grid information and operations technology and smart metering.  According to Navigant the most capital-intensive segment is transmission, which is estimated to contribute nearly $250 billion in revenue from 2013 to 2020, more than half the cumulative total for the smart grid technology market.

According to a report by Innovation Observatory 80 % of the worldwide investment in electricity smart grids by 2030 will be made by 10 countries.  Over the next five years, it is projected that the United States will dominate global capital expenditure, but China is projected to pass the U.S. in 2016.   For the entire period through 2030, the top spending countires will be China (US$99 billion by 2030),  United States (US$60 billion by 2030), India, France, Germany, Brazil, Spain, United Kingdom, Japan and Korea.

Adoption of horizontal BIM, heavy BIM, VDC, civil information modeling, BIM on its side, and BIM for infrastructure

Horizontal BIM, heavy BIM, VDC, civil information modeling, BIM on its side, or BIM for infrastructure are terms used in the construction industry for  the application of model-based technologies and processes to non-building projects. This includes infrastructure for dams, waste facilities, rail, transit, aviation, energy, public parks and recreation, bridges, roads and highways, and water and wastewater.  The term vertical BIM is often used to differentiate BIM for buildings. 

BIM has achieved incredible penetration in the vertical market.  The latest McGraw-Hill Construction report Business Value of BIM in North America 2012 reports that overall Adoption of BIM has increased from 17% in 2007 to 71% in 2012, which represents 45% growth over the last 3 years.

A recent McGraw-Hill SmartMarket Report The Business Value of BIM for Infrastructure suggests that BIM is beginning to significantly impact the infrastructure construction industry.  High/very high use of BIM for infrastructure projects among owners, contractors, and A/E firms was only 16% in 2009.  In 2013 it has reached 52%.    In 2009 73% for firms reported no or low use of BIM on infrastructure projects.   In 2013 only 21% of firms report low or no use of BIM.

One of the most important findings of the research is that firms involved in vertical BIM projects in the past are more likely to use BIM for infrastructure as well.  The report finds a positive correlation between BIM penetration in the vertical market and BIM use for infrastructure.  McGraw-Hill suggests that the result will be that BIM adoption in the horizontal market will occur at a  faster rate than the rate of adoption of BIM in the vertical market. It is interesting that contractors followed closely by owners are leading high/very high adoption of BIM.

Some of the interesting findings of the report are

• Almost half (46%) of the firms surveyed report using BIM on their infrastructure projects, up from 27% two years ago.
• The percentage of those using BIM on more than 50% of their projects is expected to grow from 30% now to 52% in just two years.
• 79% of current non-users of BIM feel positively about future adoption of BIM, with only 4% actually opposed.
• 67% of all users report a positive ROI on their BIM investments, even higher than the 63% of BIM users for buildings who reported the same in 2009.

Benefits of BIM for Infrastructure

The top benefits reported for BIM for infrastructure are

1. lower project risk and better predictability of project outcomes (60%) as a top benefit in the next five years
2. reduced conflicts and changes (58%)
3. improved project quality (48%)

Adoption of BIM for infrastructure projects

According to the McGraw-Hill report on BIM in North America many organizations have been using BIM on vertical building projects for a number of years.  The infrastructure report finds that the  adoption of BIM for infrastructure projects lags BIM for buildings.  According to McGraw-Hill the use of BIM for infrastructure is about three years behind its use on vertical projects.  As evidence McGraw-Hill has compared the length of time firms have used BIM for infrastructure to that for
building projects reported in McGraw-Hill Construction’s 2009 BIM SmartMarket Report.

Years using BIM: 1–2 Years

2012 Infrastructure: 50%
2009 Buildings: 48%

Years using BIM: 3–4 Years

2012 Infrastructure: 27%
2009 Buildings: 28%

Using BIM more than 5 years
2012 Infrastructure: 23%
2009 Buildings: 24%

Benefits of BIM for Infrastructure

Top business benefits for A/E firms

• Marketing new business
• Reduced erroors in documents
• Offer new services
• Better project outcomes
• Better project outcomes
• Maintain repeat business
• Improved learning for younger staff
• Reduced rework

Top business benefits for contractors

• Better project outcomes
• Marketing new business
• Reduced rework
• Offer new services
• Reduced errors in documents
• Improved learning for younger staff
• Maintain repeat business

Top business benefits for BIM for infrastructure for owners

• Better project outcomes 44%
• Reduced rework 44%
• Fewer claims/litigation 38%
• Reduced errors in documents 33%
• Reduced workflow cycle time 33%
• Reduced project duration 33%
• Reduced construction cost 22%

Using GPUs for compute-intensive geospatial applications

The Titan supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee was names the fastest computer on Earth in November 2012, according to the Top500 list.  Most of Titan’s computing capacity comes from its NVIDIA Tesla K20X GPU accelerators. Based on the same architecture used in NVIDIA’s workstation and PC gaming chips, the GPU accelerators perform computations far more power efficiently than any machine equipped with CPUs alone.

Mapping tweets in real-time

I blogged recently about TweetMap which is an instance of MapD, a massively parallel database platform being developed through a collaboration between Todd Mostak, (a researcher at MIT), and the Harvard Center for Geographic Analysis (CGA).  The database can be queried by time, space, and keyword.  The ultimate objective is to be able to query billions of tweets live in real-time.  In this case real-time means from tweet to tweet on a map in under a second.  MapD is a general purpose SQL database that can be used to provide real-time visualization and analysis of very large data sets.  MapD uses commodity Graphic Processing Units (GPUs) to parallelize compute intensive tasks such as querying and rendering very large data sets on-the-fly.  MapD runs on inexpensive hardware  with four GPUs ( ~$1000).

Flood modelling

At the HxGN conference in Las Vegas last week, I came upon Myriax Software Pty Ltd, which is a private startup and  which has developed EonFusion Flood, which is a hydrodynamic modeling package based on a 4D GIS which can run both 2D grid and 3D particle-based hydrodynamic simulations.  This is very compute-intensive stuff and I expected that this was running in the clud on some parallel processing machine.  It turns out it was running on a single GPU on a laptop.  Fllod can be used for river and floodplain modeling, dam break scenarios, designing spillways for dams, and urban flood risk assessment.

IEA reports progress in reducing global energy intensity

The Global Tracking Framework, an effort led by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the World Bank, tracks progress which the Sustainable Energy for All initiative (SE4ALL) has made towards  three objectives by 2030,

• achieving universal access to modern energy services
• doubling the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency (energy required per dollar of GDP)
• doubling the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix

The latest Global Tracking Framework report from the IEA estimates that as of 2010,

• 17% of the global population did not have access to electricity
• 41% still relied on wood or other biomass for cooking and heating
• 18% of the global energy mix was renewable energy
• global energy efficiency had improved by 1.3% per year since 1990.

The report says that the world has made major advances during the last 20 years,

• 1.7 billion people gained access to electrification
• 1.6 billion people gained access to less-polluting non-solid fuels
• Energy intensity dropped significantly, reducing cumulative global energy demand by more than 25 percent over 1990–2010
• Energy onsumption in 2010 was more than a third lower than it would otherwise have been
• A cumulative total of more than 1,000 exajoules (278 gigawatt-hours) of energy was supplied by renewable energy over 1990–2010 (roughly the cumulative final energy consumption of China and France over the same period)

But factorng in that the global population grew by 1.3 % per year between 1990 and 2010,and total energy consumption grew 1.5 % annually

• the share of renewable energy increased from 16.6 % in 1990 to 18.0 % in 2010. 
• the population with access to electricity grew 1.2 % annually
• the population with access to non-solid fuels grew 1.1 % annually
• renewable energy consumption grew 2 % annually

High-impact countries

The report identifies 20 “high-impact” countries that are crucial to making major progress.  On all three aspects of energy sector development, China, and to a lesser extent India, stand out as being both high-impact and fast-moving countries.

Two overlapping groups of 20 high impact countries in Asia and Africa account for about two-thirds of the global electrification deficit and four-fifths of the global deficit in access to non-solid fuels. With respect to electrification and cooking fuel, the most fast-moving countries have expanded access by around 3–4 percentage points of their population each year.

A group of 20 high-income and emerging economies accounts for four-fifths of global energy consumption.  The most rapid improvements in energy intensity with a compound annual growth rate of -4 to –8 %, have been achieved in countries that began with high levels of energy intensity, where efficiency gains were relatively easy to make.  In the case of renewable energy, the fastest-moving countries have experienced compound annual growth rates of 10–15 percent in the consumption of energy from renewable sources, but from a very low starting base.

Future

IEA finds that neither energy efficiency nor renewable energy measures alone will be sufficient to contain global warming to within two degrees Celsius by 2030.  However,  the two together could bring that objective much closer. At the same time, achieving universal access to modern energy would raise global carbon dioxide emissions by only 0.6 % compared to business as usual.

The Global Tracking Framework has set goals against which progress will be measured

• The rate of access to electricity will have to increase from 83 % in 2010 to 100 % by 2030.
• The rate of use of non-solid fuel as the primary fuel for cooking will have to increase from 59 % in 2010 to 100 % by 2030.
• The rate of improvement of energy intensity will have to double from –1.3 % for 1990–2010 to –2.6 % for 2010–30.
• The share of renewable energy in the global final energy mix will have to double from an estimated 18 % in 2010 to 36 % by 2030.

Meeting the universal access objective globally will depend critically on the progress that can be made in 20 high impact countries in Asia and Africa.

The achievement of the global SE4ALL objectives for renewable energy and energy efficiency will not be possible without major progress in 20 high-income and emerging economies.

The report also finds that achievement of the SE4ALL goals requires energy investments to increase by at least $ 600 billion per year until 2030, compared with the level currently expected.

• universal electricity access - an additional $ 45 billion per year
• universal access to modern cooking - an additional $ 4.4 billion per year
• renewables - an additional $ 174 billion per year
• energy efficiency - an  additional $ 394 billion per year.

The IEA syas that this investment must be accompanied by a comprehensive package of policy measures, including fiscal, financial and economic incentives, phasing out fossil-fuel  subsidies, and pricing of carbon.

Navigating with real-time traffic data - Google and Waze

According to a New York Times report  "Google Is Close to Acquiring Waze, a Rival in Maps", Google wants to improve the capability of Google Maps to use real-time traffic data to optimize routing.  At Google’s annual developers conference last month, Google announced a new version of Maps that includes more real-time traffic information.  But it appears that in addition Google may be trying to acquire Waze.

Waze is a social media service that uses voluntary GPS tracking of its users and their live reports about accidents and other road hazards to dynamically adjust routing. According to the article Waze has about 47 million users globally. mostly outside of the U.S.  It is particularly widely used in Israel.

OpenStreetMap database contains 34 million km of roads and 78 million buildings

OpenStreetMap (OSM) was started in 2004 largely motivated by the expensive and restrictive licensing of the government spatial data available in the UK at the time.  Since then OSM has defined crowdsourcing in the geospatial domain. 

August 9^th 2004 was the day that the first user registered the domain and started the project.  I blogged about March 16th, 2009 when the 100 000^th user registered on OpenStreetMap.  On January 6, 2013, OpenStreetMap crossed the one million users mark.  The number is currently about 1.1 million registered users.  (OSM are careful to point out a majority of users are casual or inactive, with a small minority contributing the majority of additions and corrections to the map.)  When the number of users hit 750,000 the number of active mappers was about 24,000.  More than 1,000 new mappers contribute every day.  New edits appear on the map in about a minute.  In 2007 this took a week.

Initially OSM used a Creative Commons license, but OSM now has its own data license which it moved to on April 1st, 2012.

According to the just released 2013 OpenStreetMap Data Report, OSM's  database now contains 33,968,739 km (21,107,196 miles) worth of road data.  It also contains 78 million building footprints.  That's about 3.2 billion GPS points.

A new in-browser map editor was just released on OpenStreetMap.org. The new editor is designed to improve the first-time editing experience while providing a fast and intuitive interface for everyone mapping on OpenStreetMap.

ROI of up to $21 per dollar invested in improving accuracy of geolocation of underground utilities

I blogged recently about a remarkable effort by the City of Las Vegas to create an accurate 3D model of the underground infrastructure of the city.  An important question is what are the quantified benefits of improving the reliability of the geolocation and condition information about underground utilities ?  As part of an effort in Australia to improve the reliability of information about underground utilities, the standards committee investigated the available evidence for quantified benefits.

Australia Subsurface Utility Engineering Information Standard

In May 2010, Standards Australia Committee IT-036, Subsurface Utility Engineering Information began developing a new Australian Standard, AS 5488—201X, Classification of Subsurface Utility Information (SUI).

The motivation for this standards effort was the lack of reliable information during design and construction activities that can result in costly conflicts, delays, utility service disruptions, redesigns, personal injuries to workers, and even lost lives.  The fundamental problem is that the location of subsurface utilities often appears on design plans, but they are based on notoriously unreliable as-builts.

To address this issue Standards Australia (SA) began developing an Australian Standard for the practice of Subsurface Utility Engineering (SUE).  SUE is an engineering process that combines civil engineering, geophysics, survey and CADD/GIS and provides much more accurate information on the location and condition of subsurface utilities than has been traditionally available.

As part of this effort SA committee researched the quantifiable benefits attributable to SUE.  They found three studies that attempted to quantify the return on investment in improving the quality of subsurface utility data, including location and condition of assets.

USDOT - ROI of $4.62 per $1.00 invested

According to a USDOT sponsored survey conducted by Purdue University in 1999 (Cost Savings on Highway Projects Utilizing Subsurface Utility Engineering), two broad categories of savings emerged from using SUE — quantifiable and qualitative savings. The Purdue study quantified a total of US$4.62 in avoided costs for every US$1.00 spent on SUE. Although qualitative savings (for example, avoided impacts on nearby homes and businesses) were not directly measurable, the researchers believed those savings were significant, and arguably many times more valuable than the quantifiable savings.

Ontario Sewer and Watermain Contractors Association - ROI of $3.41 per $1.00 invested

In 2004 in Canada, the Ontario Sewer and Watermain Contractors Association commissioned the University of Toronto to investigate the practice of using SUE on large infrastructure projects in Ontario. This study, entitled Subsurface Utility Engineering in Ontario: Challenges and Opportunities, determined that the average rate of return for each dollar spent on SUE services on those projects that could be quantified was $3.41.

Pennsylvania DOT - ROI of $21.00 per $1.00 invested

In 2007, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation commissioned Pennsylvania State University to study the savings on Pennsylvania highway projects that used SUE in accordance with the mapping provisions of the American standard. In their unpublished report, Subsurface Utility Engineering Manual, Pennsylvania State University found a return on investment of US$21.00 saved for every US$1.00 spent for SUE when elevating the quality level of subsurface utility information using SUE. This significantly higher return on investment when compared to Purdue and Toronto studies is thought to be a result of maturation of process and possibly a consideration of the qualitative savings noted above.

Image courtesy of VTN Consulting.