Standards for underground location quality are rapidly evolving

In the last two years quality standards for location quality of underground infrastructure in the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Australia have been revised or augmented.  This reflects the accelerating development of new technologies and evolution of existing technologies.

For example, the release of the new ASCE Standard Guideline for Recording and Exchanging Utility Infrastructure Data (also referred to as the utility as-built standard) developed under the auspices of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE’s) Construction Institute(CI) and Utility Engineering and Surveying Institute (UESI) is imminent. Its purpose is to facilitate data collection, data management, and data exchange among stakeholders. It is designed to complement the widely used ASCE 38-02 Standard Guidelines for the Collection and Depiction of Existing Subsurface Utility Data.  As a reminder ASCE 38-02, published in 2002, is intended to standardize the classification of the quality of location information about existing subsurface utility networks on engineering drawings. The standard defines four quality levels based on the method used to determine the location of underground assets.

It is interesting to review global underground location quality standards and see that most of these standards have evolved in the last years which reflects the accelerating development of new technologies for detecting and locating underground infrastructure.  For example, ASCE 38-02 is not prescriptive with respect to accuracy and is generally 2D in focus.  Recent quality standards such as the soon to be released ASCE as-built standard, PAS 128, the French DICT, and Canadian CSA S-250 specify accuracy levels in 3D.

1986 – Japan, Road Administration Information Center (ROADIC)

1998 – Japan, Road Management System (ROADIS) provides de facto standard

2002 – U.S. ASCE 38-02

2006 – Malaysia Standard Guideline for Underground Utility Mapping

2011 – Canada CSA S250:11

2012 – France Presidential Decree relating to excavations near underground, overhead or underwater transmission or distribution networks

2013 – Australia AS 5488

2014 – U.K. PAS 128

2015 - Ecuador NTE INEN 2873

2017 – U.K. PAS 256

2019 – Australia Revised AS 5488.1:2019

2020 – Canada Revised CSA S250:20

2021 – U.K. Revised PAS 128

2021 – U.S. ASCE Standard Guideline for Recording and Exchanging Utility Infrastructure Data aka “Utility as-built standard”