Between the Poles

Canadian government's approach to managing underground infrastructure on federal land

Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) is responsible for procurement and real property management for federal departments and agencies. There are about a hundred departments and agencies in the Federal government, of which 23 are custodians of real property assets.  PSPC, National Defense and Parks Canada are the largest. PAPC's responsibilities includes underground infrastructure on federal property. PSPC's strategy is a bottom-up approach in which the federal government is working within the framework of existing provincial legislation. In the past two year PSPC has joined all provincial one call centres across the country within that framework is responding to requests for information about underground infrastructure on federal property. PSPC has undertaken the task of creating a PSPC Directive, Standard and Guidelines for the protection of underground infrastructure. Ultimately the intention is to submit these documents to Treasury Board to encourage other agencies that are custodians of real property assets as well as regulatory agencies to adopt a common approach to managing information about underground infrastructure.

In the national capital region PSPC initiated a pilot project with Ontario One Call to see how the one call notification system would work with national and crown owned properties within the National Capital Area (NCA). The first stage of the PSPC requires compiling maps of existing Federal underground infrastructure enabling the government to respond to information requests. To do that required determining what information it intends to share taking into consideration Government of Canada security requirements. Secondly it required that PSPC and other federal agencies register with Ontario One Call. The NCA pilot has made it possible to identify underground infrastructure that would not have been seen without going through the process. As a result PSPC is gaining a better understanding of the relationship with contractors and excavator which is helping build a more robust system and business procedures for collecting location information about underground infrastructure on federal property. The experience that has been gained in the NCA is being passed down to the PSPC regional organizations to enable them to develop similar capacities for managing location data about underground infrastructure.

The challenge is to capture comprehensive data not only about the accurate location of underground infrastructure, but  other properties of the facilities, such as diameter of pipe, cable capacity, type of material, its condition, when it was last inspected, and so on. In each region PSPC is carrying out an inventory of existing underground assets and based on that conducting a gap analysis. The many gaps that were found which were not just missing data, but data that was only available in the form of paper documents. This has motivated a drive within PSPC to get away from paper documents and move to a completely digital environment based on standards that allow this data to be shared easily within the government and with external entities such as utility and telecom operators, contractors and excavators. For example, the Parliamentary Precinct is the responsibility of three or four different government departments each with its own staff. Underground infrastructure on Parliament Hill is already very congested and with the amount of construction and development planned and underway it is essential to know reliably where things are underground and be able to identify clashes with new designs and to be able to hare this data interoperability among the several agencies involved.

PSPC has undertaken the task of creating a PSPC Directive, Standard and Guidelines for the protection of underground infrastructure. This requires engaging with provincial and territorial one call centres, developing the capability to respond to requests for information, and developing business processes to improve the accuracy, timeliness, and comprehensiveness of the data about underground infrastructure that is maintained by the Federal Geomatics group.  The longer term goal is for Treasury Board to encourage custodians of real property asets assets such as National Defense and Parks Canada, as well as regulatory agencies including Transport Canada, Canada Energy Regulator and Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) to adopt similar policies so that this approach to damage prevention becomes pervasive in the Federal government.

Currently this initiative is a bottom-up effort that encourages people to participate voluntarily because of the benefits it provides to them in their work. The goal is develop a concrete, feasible solution that does not disrupt current operations and that will demonstrate the value of the underground information that is being collected and shared with stakeholders. In the future it is expected that the awareness of the significant benefits from better management of underground assets will reach higher levels within government and engender a discussion on ways to collaborate on underground infrastructure throughout the federal government.

Background

In 2015 CSA Z247 the first Damage Prevention Standard in Canada was released. It describes the damage prevention process and elements would reduce damages to Canada's underground infrastructure improving public, worker and community safety and preserving the environment,  It was sponsored by the National Energy Board, Natural Resources Canada, the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association and the Canadian Gas Association. 

In 2014 the Senate Standing Committee on Energy, the Environment, and Natural Resources completed two studies; Moving Energy Safely: A Study of the Safe Transport of Hydrocarbons by Pipelines, Takers and Railcars and Digging Safely - One Call Notification Systems and the Prevention of Damage to Canada's Buried Infrastructure.  The Senate Standing Committee followed this with specific recommendations;

• That the federal government reference the CSA Z247 standard for protection and prevention of damage to buried infrastructure and encourage provinces and territories to reference the standard in legislation.
• That buried facilities on federal land be registered with a provincial or territorial one-call services and that the federal government require anyone undertaking excavation on federal land to call the local one-call centre.
• That the federal government require all owners of federally regulated buried infrastructure to become members of a provincial or territorial one-call service.

This post is partly based based on the contribution of Jennifer Ross, PSPC, to the panel discussion on the role of government in underground infrastructure at the Canadian Underground Forum (CUF). You can listen to all the talks at CUF on the GeoIgnite CUF Youtube channel.

One-call centre in England reports inaccurate and missing plans a leading cause of underground utility damage

In the UK the total number of incidents of utility strikes every year is unknown. Statistics on underground utility strikes such as those collected by the Common Ground Alliance in North America are not available.  Since 2013 the Utility Strike Avoidance Group (USAG) has begun collecting statistics on underground utility damage, but still only collects data on a small proportion of utility strikes.  Without baseline underground utility damage statistics, it is not possible to determine whether damage in increasing or decreasing.  Given the projected £ 600 billion investment in infrastructure over the next five years with a focus on building more faster, reducing the risk of damage to underground utilities on construction projects will be essential to prevent delays and budget overruns. The latest statistics from North America and the Netherlands reveal little progress in reducing underground utility damage over the past five years or so in spite of one call and other measures that have been implemented.

LinesearchbeforeUdig's (LSBUD) Digging Up Britain 2020 Report has just been released. According to LSBUD's data, the leading causes of utility strikes was inaccurate and missing plans/facility maps (40%) and inadequate assessment of the planned construction project (35%). This mirrors similar conclusions for North America based on a survey reported in a CGA White Paper. The CGA survey found white-lining (marking the ground to delineate the location of proposed excavations) and better facility maps received nearly unanimous agreement as top strategies for improving efficiency and quality of locates. Respondents reported that out of date, incomplete and inaccurate facility maps are an important contributing factor in making utility locates difficult and slow.

England does not have legislation mandating a one-call centre as every state and province in North America does.  This puts the onus on excavators to track down and contact utilities and others who may have infrastructure in the area of the planned excavation.  To fill the gap a private company Linesearch BeforeUdig (LSBUD) offers something similar to a North American one-call centre. In 2019 850,000 kilometres of Great Britiain's 1.5 million kilometres of underground assets were registered by 95 members with LSBUD, mostly gas (80%) and electricity(70%). LSBUD offers a free to use service which anyone planning excavation can use to check for underground utility assets that LSBUD's 95 members (network owners) have in the area of the planned excavation.The excavator provides details of the planned excavation to an online system.  The system responds with a list of LSBUD members that have assets near where the excavation is planned.  Subsequently each member sends plans of their infrastructure assets in the area of the planned excavation.

Of 3 million search requests to LSBUD in 2019 most (2.15 million searches) came from excavators working on utility and telecom construction projects. Highway projects including street and road rehabilitation were second with 421,452 searches.   32% of the queries originated from telecom companies, reflecting the rapid buildout of fibre networks. Water companies were second with 21% of the information requests. The largest year over year increase in requests was from private individuals, perhaps reflecting the impact of the pandemic on homeowners spending more time in their gardens.

Ontario adopts policy to reduce underground utility risk on public construction projects through collaboration

Utility locates and relocation work have historically been the cause of construction delays on public construction projects, particularly in urban areas with dense population and the commensurate underground utility and telecom infrastructure. With the massive investment require to improve infrastructure not only in Ontario but around the globe, improving outcomes and reducing risk has become absolutely essential. In recent bills the Ontario Legislature has addressed the problem of underground utility locates and relocations by providing strong enforcement options when the work is not completed accurately and in a timely manner. While the legislation provides strong measures for compelling utilities and other infrastructure owners to improve utility treatments and relocations, the legislation has resulted in a new approach to utility coordination based on a collaborative approach among utility owners and government agencies replacing the traditional regulatory mechanisms involving fines and other penalties for noncompliance.

Mitigating underground utility risk through collaboration

Infrastructure Ontario is an agency of the provincial government working with the private sector to renew the province's infrastructure by developing new linear projects with a focus on transit. Underground utilities represent one of the top transit project delivery risks identified by Infrastructure Ontario. Mitigating utility risk for transit projects is a continuous process involving many stakeholders.  Infrastructure Ontario and Metrolinx, the regional rail organization that runs the regional transit system in the Toronto area and South Central Ontario, have developed an approach to utility risk mitigation based on early collaboration, a single source of project truth, subsurface utility engineering (SUE) surveys to improve utility location data, shared workflows that ensure data freshness, options to avoid, protect or relocate utilities, and making underground utility location data accessible to all stakeholders including engineering firms and contractor bid teams.

Legislative foundation for new approach to utility coordination

The Ontario government identified an opportunity to expand on its transit agenda and launched a very ambitious program with four priority subway projects in the GTA worth just under $30 billion. In February 2020 the government introduced enabling legislation, referred to as the Building Transit Faster Act (BTFA). Among other things it provided mechanisms for compelling utility network owners to better coordinate their activities with government transit agencies. Under the legislation Metrolinx has authority to manage and maintain its own right of way like a municipality. It is responsible for issuing consents for utility conflicts or new utility construction activity within its right of way and easements.

Infrastructure Ontario and Metrolinx decided to keep the regulatory “big stick” as a rarely used exception and focused on developing a collaborative approach to utility coordination as a more productive and efficient way to achieve better utility coordination. In this vein the Utility Coordination Program (UCP) was launched in March 2020 with the goal of formalizing a new, more streamlined way of performing utility relocation work by enhancing coordination between stakeholders groups. The immediate objectives of the UCP were the development of a Utility Relocation Guideline and associated workflows. At the same time the Office of Utility Coordination (OUC) was created to monitor compliance with the processes designed by the UCP. Infrastructure Ontario began working with key utilities and telecoms, the Ministry of Transportation, the ministry responsible for the act, and Metrolinx, to develop a program to improve utility coordination. The goal of ths UCP initiative was a coordination scheme that would allow Metrolinx and utilities to work together to coordinate underground utilities without constantly relying on the legislation. To achieve this all of the industry stakeholders met at the beginning of the project to map out step-by-step how the work would progress. It was recognized that construction does not flow in a linear fashion, a lot of the work is happening simultaneously and there are hundreds of thousands of conflicts constantly occurring within the program at different stages. But major workflows were mapped out and a consensus was arrived at with all the utilities impacted by those workflows. The result was a well-documented understanding how construction would progress and what was required of each stakeholder at each step along the way. The results of these efforts were encapsulated in the Utility Relocation Guideline, which formed a set of regulations that became part of the BTFA act. It is a manual for how organizations will use the utility relocation workflows that have been developed.

Single source of project truth key to effective collaboration

It was recognized that the foundation for a collaborative approach to utility coordination is a single source of project truth. The Office of Utility Coordination (OUC) was setup to became the single custodian of project data and applications. The OUC has compliede a Spatial Library containing the alignments and engineering designs for all of the transit projects, the location of all utilities and telecom infrastructure, and identified utility conflicts. Shared workflows are designed to ensure that the data is kept fresh enabling an OUC dashboard that allows project activities to be monitored in near real time.

One of the major issues recognized by Metrolinx/Infrastructure Ontario is incomplete, inaccurate and out of data records of the location of underground utilities. Therefore to improve the quality of the data on all projects Metrolinx conducts subsurface utility engineering (SUE) surveys in accordance with ASCE 38 along the entire transit alignment. The level of SUE required is typically a minimum QLC/QLB with QLA at locations of interest including stations and transmission utilities. Combining the results of the SUE surveys with the alignments and designs in the Spatial Library results in a conflict matrix identifying the locations of utility conflicts. Based on this information treatments and relocation plans are developed and added to the Spatial Library.

The primary source of the data is provided by utility and other partners. Metrolinx improves on that data through SUE surveys. But in dense urban environments there is often unidentified infrastructure because it was mislocated, unknown or has no known owner. It has been found that many SUE providers and surveying organizations that Metrolinx/Infrastructure Ontario work with have institutional memory of their own experience independent of the records that the utility holders own and they are able to provide valuable insights and data. For example, they may have found that a specific utility's data is not reliable but that they, the SUE provider or surveyor, had actually already done a survey in the area and can share the improved data set with Metrolinx.

The OUC dashboard provides a number of spatial views that allows conflicts and construction activities to be tracked at the transit line level, the utility level, and the conflict level. For example it is possible to view one of the entire transit lines to see all the utility conflicts. Hovering over any of the conflicts provides data about that conflict; the identification and type of asset, the asset owner, information about asset from asset registries or from a SUE survey, and any plans to develop a treatment or relocation for it.

The Spatial Library is being compiled for current priority transit projects, but it is designed to be persistent. This is in contrast to the past approach where data was captured on a project basis, not maintained and effectively lost at the completion of the project. Now Metrolinx/Infrastructure Ontario will be retaining and maintaining the data within the transit right of way. The OUC dashboard and OUC spatial library will eventually be expanded beyond Ontario's four priority transit projects to also monitor public service works for transit in other parts of the province.

Infrastructure Ontario is working with the Centre for Advancement of Trenchless Technologies (CATT) at the University of Waterloo on a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the utility coordination program resulting from the BTFA. A report is expected at the end of the year that will not only describe how the improved utility coordination program provides benefits to Ontarians in managing the risks of transit project construction, but will also provide quantitative financial data on how this program improved outcomes and reduced costs and risk.

Expanding improved utility coordination to other public projects

In December 2020, Bill 222 Ontario Rebuilding and Recovery Act, went into force.  It extended the special regulations applicable to designated transit corridors in the GTA to other provincial “priority transit projects”.  It also provided measures to enforce compliance on highway projects by amending the Public Service Works on Highways Act.

Furthermore, the recently passed Bill 257 Building Broadband Faster Act, 2021 which is intended to expedite the delivery of broadband to under served areas of Ontario, revises the 2012 Ontario One Call Act in several way to improve utility coordination. Specifically it requires network owners to accurately locate their equipment within 10 business days after notification by Ontario One Call or face “pay for delay” or “pay for mislocate” penalties. The legislation mandates that the cost of these penalties cannot be passed on to ratepayers but are to be borne by shareholders. But the focus is on collaboration rather than on the regulatory stick. The Building Better Broadband Faster Act is built on the experience of the utility coordination achievements of the BTFA. The data, the application of the data, utility coordination program and the capabilities of the office of utility coordination to enable a single source of project truth have made it possible to work with all the key stakeholders on the broadband initiative in a transparent coordinated fashion.

Vision for the future

Effectively what Mterolinx and Infrastructure Ontario is the foundation for a digital twin. In the priority transit corridors the location and other properties of existing infrastructur including all the utilities and infrastructure such as the station boxes and the alignments, the tunnels, whether it's low grade, at grade or above grade all captured in 3D.  This approach is being expanded to other public projects such as highway expansion and improvement projects and broadband. Combining this data and applications could provide reliable data and capabilities for a significant proportion of public projects in the province. There is also evidence that industry is finding that the advantages of the new utility coordination regime can be applied to other non-public projects raising the prospect of a single utility coordination approach being adopted throughout the construction industry.

Conclusion

Since 2020 Ontario has put in place the legislative foundation for improving utility coordination on public construction projects in the province. It has used this as a way of motivating a concrete collaborative program to utility coordination that aims to avoid the combative environment that often characterized the traditional regulatory mechanisms involved in utility locates, treatments, and relocations.  An essential key to enabling this collaborative project environment is a single source of project truth based on shared data including the location of existing utility and other infrastructure, alignments and designs, utility conflicts and treatment relocation plans.  Shared workflows are designed to ensure that the remains fresh enabling real-time monitoring of the status of utility conflicts, treatments, and relocations.  The legislation together with the implementations of the  Utility Coordination Program, the Office of Utility Coordination, the Utility Relocation Guideline and shared workflows provide a practical approach for improved utility coordination on construction projects that represents a model for other jurisdictions that have recognized the human and economic risk associated with underground utilities and are looking for practical ways to mitigate that risk.

This post is based on Gord Reynolds's talk at the Canadian Underground Forum. You can listen to Gord's talk on the GeoIgnite CUF Youtube channel.   Further insights can be found in the contributions of Alon Gat and Gord Reynolds to the panel discussion on the role of government in underground infrastructure.

Colorado leads in mandating subsurface utility engineering (SUE) surveys for public civil engineering projects

A major gap in the construction process is the unavailability of reliable information about the location of underground utilities during the design stage of civil engineering construction projects such as highways and pipelines. All states and provinces in North America have one call legislation designed to reduce underground utility damage during actual excavation, but the legislation does not provide for making underground records available to inform the design phase of construction projects. Colorado is the first state/provincial jurisdiction in North America and one of the first in the world to mandate a subsurface utility engineering survey (SUE) at the pre-construction stage. At the Canadian Underground Forum in April, Rob Martindale, Utilities Program Manager at the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) and a Professional Land Surveyor, described the process by which SUE surveys became law in Colorado.

Several jurisdictions around the world have undertaken initiatives to integrate underground infrastructure location data and make it available to all stakeholders. Among the leaders in this effort are the National Underground Asset Registry (NUAR) project in the UK, Singapore's Digital Underground initiative, and the State of Colorado. While the UK and Singapore are in the initial stages of implementation, Colorado has already enacted and implemented legislation and regulations which are transforming underground infrastructure location data for public civil engineering projects across the state.

Mapping underground infrastructure is benefiting from accelerating innovations in technology in detecting, locating, capturing and sharing subsurface utility location data. Experience has shown that enabling these technical advances to permeate and transform business practices in the entire construction industry requires government intervention. The key stakeholders in civil engineering construction are government transportation agencies, utility regulatory agencies, utility and telecom network owners and operators, civil engineering consultants and construction contractors.

Rob Martindale is responsible for improving CDOT's subsurface utility mapping program and utility data management systems. He has been involved from the beginning in the legislative and regulatory processes that are transforming underground infrastructure data in Colorado and is able to provide an insider's perspective on how this process unfolded in Colorado.

As anyone who is involved in civil construction knows, the historical problem with locating underground infrastructure is that utility company records (aka network documentation) are inaccurate, old or outdated, lost, or simply just never existed to begin with. The records that do exist are often inconsistent and the quality of the data is unknown. Records are kept in different data models and formats, typically as CAD drawings, GIS files, paper copies, and PDFs. Some drawings are schematics rather than records of actual utility location. Virtually all of the data is 2D so depth is unknown. Another complicating problem is that in general each utility uses a different base map making it difficult to integrate data from different utilities on a single map. These issues make compiling a reliable map of underground infrastructure in preparation for a civil construction project a challenge. The result is that underground utilities are ignored until excavation begins. As a consequence according to the Federal Highway Administratiion (FHWA) underground utilities are the biggest cause of delays in highway construction projects.

Recognizing the risks associated with underground utilities, CDOT could see that one way to reduce risk was by enabling more reliable and efficient subsurface utility mapping. Since the state is the legal custodian of the public right of way, it had the power to enforce regulations for utility and telecoms with network facilities in the right of way. To CDOT having more reliable location data and more comprehensive attribute data about each utility such as size of pipes and cables and types of material would make for more efficient and productive coordination with utility owners. To achieve this CDOT's vision was a single platform where all underground location and attribute data would be accessible to all stakeholders working in Colorado on current and future civil construction projects.

New legislation revising Colorado's one call statute

In 2015 the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) conducted an assessment of the Colorado one call system that resulted in a report that identified the lack of an enforcement mechanism as a major impediment to effective prevention of damage to underground infrastructure in the Colorado one call legislation. The PHMSA review had implications in a number of areas including future Federal funding. Then in April 2017, there was a gas explosion in Firestone, Colorado that resulted in fatalities and attracted a high degree of public attention. Recognition that that the incident could have been prevented further prioritized the issue for the Colorado legislature. The result was growing pressure from many construction stakeholders including the Colorado Contractors Association, the American Council of Engineering, American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and CDOT which ultimately attracted the attention of politicians. The initiative was taken up and made a top bipartisan priority by two representatives in the Colorado legislature, Senator Ray Scott, Republican, and Senator Kerry Donovan, Democrat. In 2018 they co-sponsored a bill to revise Colorado's one call statute. The revised statute was signed by the Governor on May 25^th and became law in August, 2018.

The legislation included several important provisions. First and foremost the new law required subsurface utility engineering (SUE) surveys on most public civil engineering projects. It requires the project owner, CDOT or another agency, to notify the Colorado one call center for all projects that require a SUE survey. Furthermore after being notified by the one call center utility owners are required to provide their best available records of their infrastructure in the project area within a 10 business days. The project owner is then required to conduct a SUE survey at their own expense and provide the results showing the location of all underground infrastructure and assigned the ASCE 38 quality level to CDOT. Importantly, the SUE document must be stamped (signed) by a PLS or PE to ensure accountability. Standard SUE practice is to achieve at least ASCE Quality Level B for all underground utilities. In the case of conflicts with a new gravity-fed systems it is expected that test holes will be dug to locate and identify conflicts with existing utilities. Furthermore Colorado became an ASCE 38 state. The law requires ASCE 38 to be used on SUE surveys. Currently that means 38-02, but when the requirement will be ASCE 38-21 when that version is released.

For excavation the Colorado 811 notification process was also modified. It allows the utilities two days to visit the site and mark utilities on the ground before excavation begins.  In addition the new law mandated that all newly installed utilities must be electronically locatable.

Another important provision of the new law was the creation of a one call enforcement mechanism. This was in response to the PHMSA assessment of of Colorado's original one call legislation. The new legislation created an Underground Damage Prevention Safety Commission with the power to levy penalties on utilities that were non-compliant with Colorado's one call requirements. For example, if a utility company fails to provide its best available records within 10 business days, the commission is empowered to levy a fine of up to $75,000.

Integrating SUE into the construction lifecyle

Beginning in August 2018, CDOT adopted a five stage utility project delivery process that includes SUE activities and utility coordination processes.

In the planning stage a design scoping review (DSR) determines whether the project requires a SUE survey. There are four criteria for a project to require a SUE survey; it must be a public project, it must be primarily a horizontal project, not a vertical project such as a building, excavation must exceed two feet in depth and the site must encompass a contiguous 1000 square feet, and the project must be designed by a professional engineer. Based on these criteria more than 95% of CDOT projects meet the requirement for a mandatory SUE survey. In addition at this stage Colorado one call (CO 811) must be notified and utility owners are required to provide their best available records within 10 days. Also in the planning stage a SUE vendor i selected.

In the 0 - 30 % design stage an initial SUE review is conducted to identify all underground infrastructure to ASCE Quality Level D, C, or B. At this stage the SUE survey involves records research, geophysical investigation, professional engineering judgment, knowledge of construction practices and utility design principles all of which are used to determine the quality level to be assigned to each segment of existing utility information.

During the 30 - 90% design stage the goal is to complete the necessary remote detection and test holing to achieve QL B or A for all underground assets at the site. A technical innovation that CDOT has adopted is a mobile and cloud-based hybrid GIS/surveying system for recording underground utility location and other data. The data collected by the SUE vendor is entered into this system which allows the SUE data to be shared among all stakeholders and to be available throughout the entire construction lifecycle.

As an example a project might start with a design in Microstation. The initial SUE data is used to identify potential conflicts each of which is flagged with QL D, C, or B to show the assessed reliability of the location data. Using existing utility data compiled by the initial SUE survey makes it possible to to avoid potential utility conflicts at a very early stage.  This helps avoid costly or time consuming utility relocations. It also makes it possible to identify critical infrastructure and conflicts that may require test holing.  During the 30 - 90% design stage the SUE vendor attempts using remote sensing technology and test holing to achieve QL B or A all underground assets at the site. At this advanced design stage detailed conflicts in 3D can be identified to enable remedial action to be undertaken.  SUE data can be pushed back to the CAD environment for redesign or for utility relocations. SUE data is also made available on CDOT's mobile app for contractors to use in the field to resolve discrepancies in utility surface markings from locating activities resulting from one call notification. The handheld app also makes it possible for contractors to record new test holing that they have conducted and to document utilities exposed during excavation activities.

Colorado has become a model for jurisdictions who have recognized the human and economic cost of inaccurate, out of date and missing data about the location of underground infrastructure. Advances in technology are enabling a revolution in how we detect, capture and share reliable information about the location of underground infrastructure, but, as Colorado is demonstrating, transforming business practices in the construction industry as a whole requires legislation and regulation.

This post is based on Rob Martindale's talk at the Canadian Underground Forum. You can listen to Rob's talk on the GeoIgnite CUF Youtube channel. 

The ASCE 38-21 underground location quality standard update will be released soon

The grandfather of most quality standards around the globe for the location of underground infrastructure is the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) 38 standard, which was published two decades ago. The original 2002 version of the standard was relatively short, only 20 pages long. Because the practice of subsurface utility engineering (SUE) was new and evolving at that time, the ASCE 38 committee intended to leave the standard very basic to enable it to accommodate new innovations and to allow best practices to emerge. But it also left it open to interpretations that the committee didn't intend. The changes to the ASCE 38 standard that are coming in the update in 2021 are subtle but powerful and primarily intended to clarify the original intent and incorporate the experience of 20 years of practice and innovations to better elucidate those original concepts.

The update to the ASCE 38 standard has been in preparation for a long time, but the ASCE 38 committee wanted to ensure that the update incorporated the very fast changing technology and best practices from around the globe. Important technological advances and advances in best practices were emerging rapidly and frequently and it was a challenge to incorporate these, but now the ASCE 38 committee is confident that they have accommodated the most important of these. In March of this year, the ASCE 38 update achieved a significant milestone by passing unanimously its committee ballot. It was also approved by the three necessary ASCE entities; the standards and publications council, the utility engineering and surveying institute (UESI) board of governors and the parent organization, ASCE codes and standards division, which maintains its standards in accordance with ANSI standards. The draft standard is now with the publications department of ASCE and it's being prepared for a 45 day public comment period. After addressing those public comments, ASCE will prepare the final version of the standard in accordance with the Library of Congress guidelines.  The update will then be published as ASCE 38-21 with a new title Standard Guideline for Investigating and Documenting Existing Utilities.

In contrast to the first version, the latest version of the standard is both prescriptive and a performance standard. It is prescriptive in that it specifies the minimum actions that must be undertaken to achieve (or attempt to achieve) a particular quality level. As a performance standard it describes the professional judgment that needs to be exercised to determine the appropriate timing, sequencing, location and scope of a utility investigative effort to achieve the goal of reducing utility issues during project delivery. A typical project begins with whatever data is available.  In the future that could be a digital twin of the underground. Currently it will include at least past project records in the area of geo-technical information and a topo survey. The engineer develops a scope of work based upon their professional judgment, the client's needs, and the available data. Based on the scope of work, the engineer begins to compile data from various sources. According to the ASCE 38 standard there are four types of inputs; existing records, visibly apparent data at the site, inferred data from geophysical (remote sensing) exploration, and data about exposed utilities. For each utility segment, the professional engineer synthesizes the available inputs and based on the standard assigns a quality level. The quality level isn't about how closely it reflects reality, it's about the certainty with which the location has been determined. An important new concept in the update is guidelines for making professional judgment based upon non-utility information that may infer the presence and location of a non-recorded non-detectable utility such as a plastic waterline without records or trace wire feeding a house.

Related standards

The ASCE 38 standard is intended for subsurface utility engineering surveys (SUE) of existing infrastructure. Other standards, referred to as utility as-built standards, have been developed or are in progress for newly installed infrastructure.

Canada published its utility as-built standard CSA S250 for newly installed utility infrastructure in 2011. It has just been reauthorized and issued as CSA S250:20.

In 2012 at the request of the National Academy of Sciences, ASCE began assembling a committee of broad stakeholders to create the US version of a utility as-built standard. The US standard entitled Standard Guideline for Recording and Exchanging Utility Infrastructure Data is on the same timeline as the update to ASCE 38 and should be published at about the same time. For legal reasons it can't be referred to as a "utility as-built" standard because that terminology conflicts with usage in statutes in several states. As a result it will referred to it as the "utility as-constructed" standard and it will have its own numerical designation distinct from ASCE 38.

Using these two standards in the US, every underground and above ground utility segment that's depicted could have either a utility quality level based on ASCE 38 for existing infrastructure or a utility accuracy level from the "utility as-constructed" standard for newly installed utility infrastructure.  For example, in Colorado both draft standards are mandated.

In Canada it's a little different. Every utility segment could have either a utility quality level based on ASCE 38 for existing infrastructure or a utility accuracy level from the CSA S-250 standard for newly installed infrastructure.

This post is based on Jim Anspach's talk at the Canadian Underground Forum. Jim Anspach is the Chair of ASCE 38. For details on what has changed and what has remained the same in ASCE 38, you can listen to Jim Anspach's talk on the GeoIgnite Youtube channel. 

UK to rollout a National Underground Asset Registry in three regions of England and Wales

The Geospatial Commission, an agency of the UK government tasked with extracting more value from government geospatial data, has just released its Annual Plan 2021/2022.  One of its top priorities is developing  to develop a new data asset for the UK, the National Underground Asset Register (NUAR), to drive efficiencies in infrastructure delivery across the UK and help improve worker safety. Specifically, the immediate objective is to complete procurement of the National Underground Asset Register by Summer 2021 and to complete the national implementation by 2024.

In preparation for the Invitation to Tender for NUAR released May 7, two pilots were completed in the North East of England and in central London. About 40 utility and telecom network operators and local government agencies agreed to share data for two pilots, a harmonized data model and symbology was arrived at, and a prototype online system for sharing location data over the web was developed and tested.  The key achievements of the pilots were fostering a spirit of collaboration among the participants, limiting use cases to just four, implementing data protection measures and developing a prototype system.

There are many potential use cases for location data about underground assets; reducing utility damage during construction, efficiency of planning, efficiency of engineering design, efficiency of construction, data interoperability,  emergency response, disaster planning, digital twins and strategic planning for smart cities to name a few.  The NUAR project team decided to focus on only four.

Use case	Value source	User need	Reason
Safe digging	Utility strike avoidance	Excavators need to identify all possible underground assets	So that users can dig safely without striking an underground buried asset
On-site efficiency	Project efficiency savings	Excavators need to identify underground asset data in a single integrated view	So that workers can easily and efficiently orientate themselves on site
Site planning	Project efficiency savings	Project planners need to identify the location and agreed attributes of all underground infrastructure assets	So that accurate and comprehensive plans can be made to avoid project delays
Data exchange	Data exchange efficiency savings	Asset owners need to share underground asset data through a central platform	So that asset owners can send and respond to data requests without maintaining their own data response systems/functions

According to the just released plan in 2021-22, the Geospatial Commission will commence work on a production platform for NUAR. The implementation of NUAR will start by developing products for three regions, London, Wales, and the North East of England. In future years, the platform will be enhanced and rolled out nationally. It is intended that the National Underground Asset Register will provide digital access to comprehensive location and other data from the water, electricity, gas, telecommunications and transport sectors and will act as a single, standardized source of truth for use by planners and excavators.