Scotland is one of the leading jurisdictions in developing a nation-wide collaborative system for sharing information about the location of underground infrastructure among stakeholders involved in road construction including roads authorities, utility and telecom network operators, and Transport Scotland. The Scottish Vault system was implemented by the Scottish road works community on a voluntary basis in 2012 and will soon become mandatory. There is a dial before you dig system in Scotland, but it is being used less and less as network operators and roads authorities are switching to the Vault system.
Background
Underground utilities and other infrastructure are a major cause of highway construction schedule and budget overruns. In addition to construction delays, damage to underground utilities during construction makes every construction project a potential disaster site with risk for workers and the public. Every year, in excess of four million holes are dug in UK roads to repair assets, provide connecting services to new premises and to lay new cables and pipes. Failure to identify accurately the location of existing buried assets results in numerous practical problems, costs and dangers for utility owners, contractors and road users. Location and attribute data on underground services can be very poor, in some cases especially for older assets even non existent. Improving mechanisms of integrating and sharing knowledge on utility assets and the location of street works are expected to lead to a reduction in the amount of street works in the UK by improving both the co-ordination of works and the quality of the information shared.
I recently had the opportunity to chat with Kat Quane, Road Works Policy Manager at Transport Scotland about Scottish initiatives to reduce underground utility damage.
Scottish Road Works Register
The Scottish Road Works Register (SRWR) is a system used by all roads authorities and excavators in Scotland to coordinate construction projects. For over 30 years, it has enabled them to share details of planned and ongoing construction projects including the location of underground infrastructure. Historically underground utility information has been shared by providing maps by email, websites, or distributed on CDs.
The Scottish Road Works Commissioner is an independent public official responsible to the Scottish Parliament. The Commissioner's aim is to improve the planning, co-ordination and quality of road works throughout Scotland.
Development of the Vault system
The Scottish Community Apparatus Data Vault (Vault) is intended to make underground asset information accessible to road authorities and network operators. organizations that have a statutory right to dig up in the public right of way. The participants in Vault are restricted to organizations that participate in the Scottish Road Works Register (SRWR) and have a statutory right to dig in the public right of way. In Scotland there are about 150 utilities, half of which have a statutory right to dig. The aim of the service is to allow timely access to information about all underground assets from a single centralized location to ensure the safety of workers in excavation as well as the public. Vault is funded as part of the overall SRWR funding.
The U.K. Mapping the Underworld (MTU) project, initiated in 2004 and largely funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and involving the University of Birmingham, University of Bath, British Geological Society, University of Leeds, Newcastle University, University of Sheffield, University of Southampton, and UK Water Industry Research (UKWIR), sought to address the serious social, environmental and economic consequences arising from an inability to locate buried utility service infrastructure without resorting to potholing. As part of MTU initiative the University of Leeds developed the Vault system as part of the VISTA (Visualizing Integrated Information on Buried Assets to Reduce Street Works) project. The Vault system was adopted in Scotland in 2012.
The systems provider of the Scottish Road Works Register and Vault is a private company Symology. Data is provided by network operators and roads authorities via an extract, transform, load (ETL) process. One of the objectives of Vault is to be able to integrate data in a variety of format from different GISs. The data in Vault not only shows the location of underground infrastructure but also the type of equipment such as gas, telecoms, electricity, water and others along with contact details for the owners of the facilities.
At a minimum utilities are expected to refresh their data four times a year. In Scotland there is no national statutory limit on as-built and update backlogs. For volatile data sources data is refreshed every 2 months. However, U.K. regulators may regulate this. For example, Ofgem requires as-built and update backlogs to not exceed 42 calendar days (30 business days).
Data protection
Scotland has a history of working collaboratively. This tradition has enabled utilities and telecoms to share details of planned works in the national register up to three months ahead of deployment. Non disclosure agreements have not been required in works planning – since everyone is subject to the same rules, and everyone can see everyone else’s data, no one is commercially disadvantaged. Road Works data recorded on the Scottish Road Works Register (SRWR) is available as open data. The SRWC is subject to public body rules on cyber security and all participants must meet the highest levels of data security.
The information accessible through Vault is only available to users of the Scottish Road Works Register. The Scottish Road Works Commissioner has restricted access to the register to the roads authorities and excavators working in Scotland. Data is not shared with any third parties without the express prior permission of those that supplied the data. Access to the Vault system to contractors requires vetting by one of the members, either a network operator or roads authority. Access to the system is restricted by email and password. The system can be accessed from a notebook or a handheld in the field.
Incident reporting
Reporting underground utility damage is not part of the Vault mandate. Near misses, injuries and fatalities are reported to Health and Safety of the U.K. Government. For the last 30 years underground utility damage is reported to the “Road Works Register”. While reporting is not mandatory, since 2005 this register has been designated a legal document, and represents a permanent record that can be used in civil litigation to determine liability in the case of damage. Not all incidents of damage are reported, but it is likely that the more serious instances are. An annual report is published by the Scottish Road works Commissioner based on the data in this register, but number of incidents of underground utility damage is not reported, nor is the estimated costs of damage estimated. However the data is available and the number of incidents can be determined. Kat estimates that the number of incidents is in “hundreds”.
Data quality
There is currently no requirement relating to data quality on the data submitted to Vault by network operators and local government. However, the data submitted by utility operators and roads authorities in Scotland data is generally compliant with the U.K. data quality standard for locating underground utilities PAS 128 (2014). Furthermore, many utility operators including Scottish Water, Scottish Gas, and Scottish Power are making a concerted effort to improve the quality of the data that is submitted to Vault and Kat reports that data quality is improving. An important benefit of a system like Vault that enables all underground utility data to be seen in a single view and compared with what is exposed during excavation is that it makes inaccurate data very apparent. There is greater awareness of the value of reliable data for reducing the risk of damage during construction, planning and design, preventative maintenance and reducing liability costs.
Vault will soon be mandatory
In 2012 the Vault system was deployed in Scotland on a voluntary basis. Last year a bill to make participation mandatory in Vault was passed by the Scottish Parliament and has received royal assent. The COVID-19 pandemic has delayed implementation of the new legislation, but it is expected to begin as soon as the economy reopens.
This is a ground-breaking national initiative involving legislation, regulation, new technology and especially collaboration between stakeholders to address one of the chief causes of highway construction delays, cost overruns and injuries to workers and the public. The Scottish Vault system addresses the challenge of sharing the location of underground infrastructure among stakeholders involved in civil construction projects and is an important step toward reducing the risk of underground utility damage.
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