Between the Poles

Comparison of metrics and trends for commercial airline accidents and underground utility damage

Underground utility infrastructure represents a substantial risk to workers and the public.  Most damage to underground infrastructure is the result of construction excavation, recent examples include Murrieta CA, Durham NC, and San Francisco CA.  But inadequately maintained, aging and abandoned infrastructure whose location is unknown or poorly known is also a significant hazard as shown by the events in St Bruno, Merrimack, and Lawrence.  It is instructive to compare statistics for incidents in the commercial airline industry with those for underground utility damage.  But whereas the number of fatalities and incidents involving commercial aircraft in the U.S. has declined consistently from its high in 1929, the latest Common Ground Alliance DIRT Report reveals that the number of underground utility damage events in 2018 shows no indication of decreasing from previous years, even when prorated to the total construction spending per year.

Metrics and trends for commercial airline incidents

Reliable metrics make it possible to assess the social and economic impact of incidents and the effectiveness of new technologies and policies in preventing and reducing the severity of these incidents. In the commercial airline industry there have been reliable statistics since the early 20th Century. In 1929 there were 51 commercial airline incidents, which represents an accident rate of about 1 for every 1,000,000 passenger miles. If that rate is prorated to the current total number of revenue passenger miles this would be equivalent to 7,000 fatal incidents per year.  Fatal accidents per million flights in 2018 have decreased 16 fold since 1970, from 6.35 to 0.39, and fatalities per trillion revenue passenger kilometers (RPK) decreased 54 fold from 3,218 to 59 in 2018.  For the most recent two decades major commercial airline incidents in the U.S. resulted in 403 fatalities (excluding 9/11). 

Very good data is collected and is accessible about individual airplane incidents that help the FAA and others determine the causes of airline incidents such as the recent Boeing 737 Max 8 accidents.

Metrics and trends for underground utility damage

The CGA DIRT report and the the Utility Strike Avoidance Group (USAG) in the UK are a first step in the direction of reliable statistics for underground utility damage, but they seriously underestimate the number of incidents, do not report statistics on casualties, and only collect data on direct costs, not on indirect and social costs.

The first DIRT Report was released in 2004.  Since then the number of incidents of underground utility damage voluntarily reported to the Common Ground Alliance has increased. The DIRT Report for 2018 shows that the total estimated damages in the U.S. increased from 439,000 in 2017 to 509,000 in 2018, representing a 16% increase. Those knowledgeable about the construction industry would not be surprised if the DIRT reports underestimate the total of incidents by a factor of 2X.  The CGA has estimated that the direct cost of underground infrastructure damage to the U.S. economy is at least $1.5 billion, but I know of no estimate of the indirect and social cost associated with these damages or of the injuries and fatalities attributable to underground utility data beyond that reported by Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). Since 2005, pipeline operators have reported excavation damage as the cause of 1052 incidents, resulting in 48 fatalities, 195 injuries requiring hospitalization, and $ 481,736,551 of property damage.

In the UK the Utility Strike Avoidance Group (USAG) began collecting statistics on underground utility damage in 2013, but the coverage does not approach that of the CGA. USAG also operates on a voluntary basis with no direct funding other than support from member organizations. The last report issued by USAG was for 2015/1016. There is research that has attempted to estimate the indirect and social cost of underground utility damage in the UK. The total cost of underground utility strikes to the UK economy is estimated to be £1.2 billion a year. I know of no statistics currently available for injuries and fatalities due to damage to utilities in the UK.

For trends over time the CGA breaks out incidents that are reported by "consistently reporting sources" which are sources that have reported incidents in 2016, 2017, and 2018.  The CGA believes that these consistently reporting sources can be used reliably to determine temporal trends in the DIRT data.  Based on these sources there is no indication that the number of incidents is trending downward.

	2016	2017	2018
Reported damages from consistently reporting sources	312,046	308,783	325,606

The number of incidents of damages per million dollars of construction spending (2017 constant dollars) actually increased from 0.359 in 2017 to 0.392 in 2018.

 

 

For those that may think little can be done about this problem, it is instructive to compare the number of incidents reported in the United States with the number for all of Japan in 2016. 

	Common Ground Alliance	Japan Construction Industry Association
Reported damages 2016	390,366	134

One of the reasons for the huge disparity is that Japan has been maintaining accurate statistics for underground utility damage for many years.  Similar to what has happened in the commercial airline industry, Japan began making a serious effort to improve these metrics beginning with improving the quality of information about the location of underground utility infrastructure with the introduction of the ROADIC system in Tokyo in 1985.

This suggests that following the commercial airline industry the priorities for the U.S. and UK are to continue to improve the coverage of the statistics that are being captured for underground utility damage and to begin to implement technologies and policies for long term improvement in these metrics.

BIM and geospatial for facilities management is penetrating construction

Typically at BIMForum events, the audience is composed of architects, engineers and construction contractors, with the odd owner, but rarely facilities management (FM) folks. At this year's BIMForum 2019 conference in St Louis several talks addressed how BIM and geospatial add value during the operate and maintain phase of a construction project. In his talk Saurabh Gangwar of Clark Construction Group) explained the why, what and how of Clark's application of BIM to facilities management including a couple of case studies.

On many projects information provided by the construction contractor is handed over months after completion of the project. It can take the operator of the facility a year to go through this information to find the information required to operate the facility. This period is what is called the "blind spot" corresponding to the time the facility operator is managing the facility with limited information. Since for many types of equipment the highest probability of failure is in their first month or two of operation - just during the period that the building operator often doesn't have access to information about warranties and extended warranties - this increases the risk of equipment and even facility failures. In addition there is a cost associated with just finding the information required to service equipment.

Building information modeling (BIM) has been applied to design-build construction projects for many years. A growing number of countries are mandating BIM for public projects. While the UK government has said that "...we know that the largest prize for BIM lies in the operational stages of the project life-cycle", until recently there has not been hard data to support this conjecture. Similarly there has been only anecdotal support for an integrated BIM and geospatial approach for design, build, operate and maintain projects. Now we are beginning to see data from real world projects that offer evidence for the benefits of an integrated BIM+geospatial full lifecycle approach for construction projects.

Over the past decade, there has been impressive progress in developing open standards for the integration of geospatial and AEC (architecture, engineering and construction) views of city infrastructure which provides a standards-based basis for full lifecycle management from design through to operations and maintenance of infrastructure projects.

Why:

FM data is collected to support a number of activities including space management and renovations and both preventative and reactive building maintenance.

What:

Traditionally with a design-build approach to construction, FM data collection involves compiling as-builts, printed, pdfs, and 2D CAD drawings and operations and maintenance manuals that are required to operate and maintain a structure.  With a BIM approach most of the information required for operation and maintenance is collected during design and construction.  Four types of data comprise what is required for FM; geometric data, parametric data, field data, and O&M submittal data.  Geometric is the 3D model created with a tool such as Revit.  Parametric data is comprised of properties of assets associated with a building or other structure.  A key property is the location of the asset.  Another important property is classification using Uniformat, Omniclass or COBie.  Field data is data collected in the field often with the aid of asset tagging.  O&M submittal data involves warranty and safety information associated with each facility and piece of equipment.

Coordinate systems

One of the challenges on construction projects is that there are multiple coordinate systems; the architects, MEP and FM folks may use different coordinate systems. Saurabh explained that the most important requirement for efficient FM is agreeing on a single coordinate system. If the FM software used by the owner requires or is linked to a GIS, then the coordinate system with be a real world projection.  This reflects the experience of other construction firms on full life cycle projects, that a real world coordinate system shoudl be used from project inception.

How:

Data is created or collected using BIM design tools, spreadsheets, COBie, or FMCloud tools like Autodesk BIM 360, Onuma, or KTrack.  An Not one of these tools is good for all four types of data required by FM.  The FM solution that is used on different projects combinations of all four. Another important issue is that the designers create design BIM models, while contractors create and use construction models, typically built up from scratch independent of the design models.

For example, one of the projects Clark was responsible for was Kansas City International Airport.  On this project construction COBIe was a requirement and BIM models were relied on for geometric and parametric data stripping out some information that was not relevant for FM.  Field data was collected with an FM Cloud application.

As owners see the advantages full-lifecycle thinking for construction projects and are beginning to changing their procurement practices, construction companies are changing their business processes to optimize facility maintenance and operation. Construction companies that have taken on the challenge of design, build, operate and maintain projects are realizing that there are significant benefits from an integrated BIM+geospatial approach to full lifecycle construction. Standards organizations in both the AEC and geospatial worlds are making progress on BIM+geospatial interoperability. Over a year ago major software vendors Autodesk and ESRI announced an agreement to partner for greater interoperability between their products.

A survey of the FM industry found that while 92% had heard about BIM and 84% agreed that BIM has the potential to deliver value add to FM, over two thirds said that the FM is not prepared for BIM.  Evidence suggests that full lifecyle construction including FM is gaining traction in the construction industry.  The time is ripe for FM vendors to learn more about BIM and geospatial and their application to asset management.

Is it ethical to bury dangerous infrastructure in the public right-of-way without accurate maps ?

This is a readable version of a video that I submitted to the EthicalGEO site.

Without accurate maps of where underground infrastructure is located, every construction project has the potential to become a disaster site. Unlike the aviation industry where reliable data is collected and is accessible to investigators to prevent disasters from happening in the future, there is limited access to data about the location of underground infrastructure and what data is accessible is often inaccurate, out-of-date and incomplete with the result that serious incidents during construction with injuries and fatalities occur again and again.

Just about every month the news carries reports of explosions caused by damage to underground utilities during construction excavation. In the last few months of this year there have been explosions in Murrieta, California (July) where a utility worker was killed and 15 others injured, downtown San Francisco (February), Durham, North Carolina (May), and I could go on. These incidents are more frequent than many people realize.

This is not an impossible problem. A number of cities, regions and countries around the world have recognized the importance of accurate information about the location of underground infrastructure and implemented processes to reduce the risk of these events. For example, comparing the United States and Japan reveals a startling difference in the number of incidents of underground utility damage during construction. The number of incidents in the U.S. is about 400,000 per year (roughly one every minute). For all of Japan the number of incidents in 2016 was 137. Clearly something can be done to reduce the risk for construction workers and the public.

Returning to the comparison with the aviation industry, when major airplane crashes occur, such as the recent Boeing 737 Max 8 incidents, there is highly accurate data accessible to investigators to determine the cause and implement measures to prevent similar crashes in the future. Annual statistics show that fatalities per passenger mile in the airline industry have dropped dramatically from its high in 1929 and continues to drop. In contrast in the case of underground infrastructure there is limited access to location information and the data that is available is often inaccurate, out-of-date, and incomplete.  The number of incidents of underground utility damage is not decreasing.

How do we begin to address this issue cost-effectively ? It is estimated that in the U.S. about $10 billion is devoted annually to locating underground infrastructure prior to and during construction. But this location information is rarely shared, with the result that the same underground utilities are located over and over again. If policies, organizational structures and technologies were applied to capturing and sharing the location of utilities and other infrastructure exposed during construction, this could be a cost-effective way to begin the process of incrementally creating accurate maps of underground infrastructure and making it possible to share this information with the people who need it most, planners, designers, excavators and construction contractors.

Over the years I have personally compiled information on 25 jurisdictions in the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific that have implemented various policies and organizational structures for sharing information about the location of underground infrastructure. These range from government mandated measures to private companies, industry associations, and voluntary consortia.

The concept I am proposing is to develop a community to share information about alternative policies, organizational structures, and technologies for sharing the information about the underground infrastructure that is exposed prior to and during construction.  Based on the premise that one size does not fit all, this community would share information about what they have done to enable sharing of information about the location of underground infrastructure.  Governments, private companies, consortia, industry associations, airports, universities, and others who are concerned about improving the accessibility and quality of location data for underground infrastructure would be invited to participate.  The ultimate objective would be to begin making a dent in the number of incidents of underground utility damage and the attendant casualties.

If you agree with the premise that it is unethical to bury dangerous infrastructure in the public right-of-way without accurate maps,  I encourage you to go to EthicalGEO site, watch my video and then make sure you rate it - not based on its quality, it's my first video - but on its content.  This will contribute to raising the profile of this very serious issue in North America.

Ground penetrating radar market estimated at US$ 493 million in 2019

Utility locating involves remote-sensing and safe excavation technologies for identifying, detecting, and labeling the underground utility infrastructure including telecommunication, storm and sanitary sewers, water, electricity distribution, natural gas, cable television, fiber optics, heating and others.  Remote-sensing tools for underground utility detection have been available for decades.  Among the widely used detection devices, ground penetrating radar (GPR) not only can detect nonmetallic objects but also provide 3D location - reporting depth as well as X,Y location - which makes GPR a superior mapping technology for many applications. GPR has become almost mandatory in the water industry that is increasing its use of plastic piping. GPR does have drawbacks. The most important is that it requires an expert, typically a trained geophysicist, to interpret the scans. Secondly, most current devices are intended to operate at a walking pace making GPR inefficient compared to mobile laser scanning, for example. In addition identifying the type of utility (water, electric, fiber optic) generally requires supplementary information from other sources. In some soil types such as aggregate and clay GPR does not perform well.

Earth Radar Sparas

Recently there have been important advances in GPR that is beginning to transform subsurface utility mapping.  Hexagon AB/Leica Geosystems acquired IDS GeoRadar several years ago.  For a GPR survey in London an IDS Steam-EM array was combined with a Pegasus Two LiDAR scanner to capture above and below scans with a towed trailer at up to 15 km/hour. T2 Utility Engineers, based in Whitby, Ontario, reported commercially using a Hexagon IDS GeoRadar Stream EM multi-channel ground penetrating radar (GPR) array towed at 10-12 km/hr to capture subsurface data. In a separate initiative a successful proof of concept was reported by DGT Associates in Mississauga, Ontario in which data collected by a Siteco rig combining a Faro mobile laser scanner and Sensors and Software GPR arrays collected data simultaneously above and below ground at roadway speeds of 80 to 90 km/hr. Most recently I blogged about an important software development for the Leica Geosystems DSX GPR device.  The DXplore software displays a tomographic display (no hyperbolas !) of what the radar has detected.  There have also been important advances in radar detection technology.  ImpulseRadar, a company based in Malå, Sweden, has developed a unique ground penetrating radar (GPR) technology which uses real-time sampling (RTS) to gather data thousands of times faster than a conventional GPR. This makes possible  GPR scans of underground utilities with a commercial product at highway speeds up to 130 km/hr.  In a separate development, Earth Radar, based in Brisbane, Australia, has applied Noise-Modulated Penetrating Radar (NM-GPR) in its Sparas product, a trailer based 3D GPR that can collect measurements at 60mm intervals along the road at a speed of up to 100 km/hour.

An analysis by Markets and Markets estimated that the global ground penetrating radar market (GPR) is US$ 493 million in 2019 and would grow by over 6% per year to reach US$ 726 million by 2024.  The analysis included IDS Georadar (Italy), Sensors & Software Inc. (Canada), Guideline Geo (Sweden), Chemring Group (UK), Geophysical Survey Systems, Inc. (US), Leica Geosystems AG (Switzerland), Radiodetection (UK), Penetradar Corp. (UK), Utsi Electronics Ltd. (UK), Hilti ( Liechtenstein), Pipehawk PLC (UK), and Geoscanners (UK).

Quantum sensors may aid in detecting underground infrastructure

Interesting research in the U.K. into quantum sensors.  The UK Treasury has just committed £94 million to the National Quantum Technologies Program, which comprises four Quantum Technology Hubs across the UK.  One of the areas that is expected to benefit from quantum sensors is civil engineering, specifically in detecting objects in the underground. The UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing is working with academics, such as Nicole Metje, Professor of Infrastructure Monitoring, from the National Buried Infrastructure Facility, part of the UK Collaboratorium for Research on Infrastructure and Cities (UKCRIC). The Facility aims to allow researchers to develop and test new quantum sensing technologies, which will help to further knowledge of underground infrastructure.