Two new standards for underground infrastructure imminent from the ASCE

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) first introduced the ASCE 38-02 Standard Guidelines for the Collection and Depiction of Existing Subsurface Utility Data in 2002 and it has become the model for many underground standards around the world.  Yesterday at the Canadian Underground Forum Jim Anspach, Chair of ASCE 38, mentioned  two new standards that will appear about the same time.  ASCE 38-21Standard Guideline for Investigating and Documenting Existing Utilities is an update to the 38-02 standard reflecting the advance in technologies for detecting, locating and documenting underground utilities and other infrastructure.  The other standard ASCE 75 Standard Guideline for Recording and Exchanging Utility Infrastructure Data, referred to as the utility as-constructed standard, provides guidelines for recording the location of newly installed or relocated underground infrastructure. The current version is currently implemented in Colorado to provide a guideline for new utility infrastructure installations.

Explicit survey accuracies for quality levels C, B and A from the 2018 ASCE White Paper

ASCE 38-21 Standard Guideline for Investigating and Documenting Existing Utilities

Some things remain the same in the latest standard, for example, quality levels A, B, C, D and engineer and utility owner tasks.  But there are important differences.  Perhaps most important is that the standard is more prescriptive, defining specific performance goals that are required.  This is because it was felt that the older standard allowed practitioners to do the minimal and still say that they were ASCE 38-02 compliant. Another big change is explicit survey accuracies for quality levels C, B and A. 3D data has become an essential part of the new standard.