Between the Poles

Latest statistics reveal reducing damage to underground infrastructure remains a challenge

The ORCGA has just released the 2020 Damage Information Reporting Tool (DIRT) Report.  The report is the result of the efforts made by the ORCGA to collect and compile data about the occurrence of events of underground damage in Ontario. The annual DIRT Report provides a summary and analysis of the known events submitted during the previous year and it also provides the ability to monitor trends over time. The 2020 report focuses on the data gathered throughout Ontario during the three-year period between 2018 and 2020.

In Ontario industry practice is to measure damage prevention performance by the damage ratio metric which represents the number of damage incidents per thousand notifications. Notifications are tickets transmitted from Ontario One Call to underground infrastructure owners in response to a request from an excavator for locating underground facilities. Since 2014 the damage ratio has been gradually increasing. Due to a change in the Ontario One Call process in 2018, notifications in 2019 decreased which affected the damage ratio.

In response to the Ontario One Call process changes, a chart was created to show a new metric, the damage to request ratio, which shows the number of damage incidents per 1000 requests.  A request is a communication from an excavator, typically via Ontario One Call, requesting locate services.  Since 2018 this ratio has slowly decreased, approaching the value it attained in 2014.

Although the volume of damages in Ontario went down in 2020, without some measure of construction activity it is difficult to assign this decrease to a particular cause, for example, reduced construction activity during the pandemic.

Damage statistics (CGA, PHMSA, ORCGA) reveal that underground damage across North America and in the Netherlands (KLIC) plateaued several years ago and may actually be slowly increasing when prorated to construction activity (CGA).  An exception to this trend is the DC DICT system implemented in France where damage statistics reveal a downward trend in the amount of underground utility damage since 2013. Although the number of DTs (requests) submitted is growing every year, the trend in underground utility damage is decreasing, currently by 2 % per year.

Democratizing reality capture for underground pipeline and utility infrastructure

A revolution is happening in how we map new underground infrastructure. Instead of the paper as-builts submitted after the completion of construction for a new pipeline or other infrastructure, network owners may now request a LiDAR scan of the newly installed equipment before the trench is filled.  There are several reasons for this.  First and foremost is that LIDAR scanning has become so easy and fast that it is literally accessible to everyone. Secondly, a LIDAR scan not only captures the survey-grade location in 3D of new infrastructure, but a lot more information besides.  Thirdly, LIDAR scanning has become so inexpensive that it does not really add to construction costs. With the democratization of modern reality capture technology the availability of comprehensive, high accuracy 3D location data about underground pipelines, utilities and other infrastructure is growing.

When Leica Geosystems released the BLK360 laser scanner, this was revolutionary for several reasons;  it was small,   it only had one button, its price was unheard of in the world of professional laser scanners, and the result of a scan could be seen a few minutes later on an iPAD. This device was all about democratizing reality capture. The BLK360 was Leica's play to make professional-quality reality capture available to anyone who wants it.

Utilities have used LiDAR and photogrammetry for a number of applications involving above ground infrastructure, for example, for vegetation management and to reduce safety issues and costs when conducting a high accuracy inventory of above ground infrastructure.  But this changed in 2018 when Lux Modus entered the pipeline mapping market with the objective to change field mapping fundamentally by making the capture of high accuracy maps of underground infrastructure accessible to anyone and at a low cost. Consisting of high-density digital LiDAR, three 13 megapixel cameras, with GNSS with base station correction the Lux Modus device only requires one touch to initiate scanning which frees the user from having to manage the system while driving around the collection area.The device can be mounted on a rig on a pickup truck and by simply driving the truck along the line prior to filling the trench captures survey-grade location information and a lot more information such as depth of cover, location of weld points, and nearby utilities. The point cloud and images are uploaded for cloud processing and within a few minutes a 3D image of the new section of pipeline can be viewed by anyone with a browser that supports HTML5 including mobile devices. 

There are two use cases where LiDAR scanning can be applied two underground infrastructure. The first is when new utility infrastructure is installed and before the trench is covered.  Some jurisdictions are already mandating survey-grade accurate as-builts for new installations.  The second case is when existing infrastructure is exposed for repair or relocation.

The underground mapping industry has been facing two historical challenges.  The first is that when new network infrastructure is installed by a contractor, the so-called as-builts that are submitted to the utility after completion of construction rarely reflect the actual location of what went in the ground. The problem is that calling a survey crew and then redlining the original design to indicate where equipment was actually installed is expensive in time and cost. Furthermore, contractors are remunerated based on how rapidly they can get new equipment in the ground, not on the accuracy of the as-builts they submit.

The second problem is the result of the first. Most of the existing location data for underground utilities contained in utility and telecom network records is inaccurate, out of date or just missing. In responding to one call locate requests, utility locators have to rely on these same utility records augmented with remote detection techniques to try to detect and identify their network equipment. Contractor often have to  conduct daylighting operations using vacuum or hydraulic excavation equipment to verify what utility locators believe they have have identified and painted on the ground. Line locating and daylighting requires special equipment, software and training to do things efficiently. But even with experience detecting and identifying underground network facilities remains a slow, error prone process that can expose workers to the hazards of traffic and other safety risks and can play havoc with construction schedules.

A number of jurisdictions, realizing that the capture of point clouds is accessible and low cost, are dispensing with traditional paper as-builts and requesting LiDAR scans instead.  As a result of Lux Modus this is happening in the pipeline industry in Western Canada. Lux Modus started mapping pipelines because that was the hardest use case they could find. Now Lux Modus is expanding into other sectors such as rail, power transmission, and urban mapping first in Canada and the United States and soon in Europe. Recently in Denmark two water utilities in the Greater Copenhagen and Aarhus areas are efficiently generating point clouds of underground utility infrastructure using a handheld phone and accurately surveyed control points.  These point clouds are captured for both newly installed infrastructure and for infrastructure exposed during repairs of existing infrastructure.  Novafos, a water company in the Greater Copenhagen area, already has thousands of these point clouds which capture not only high accuracy location of the water utility's underground infrastructure, but a lot more information including the location of nearby utilities which would be a concern for any excavation involving the water lines. 

This post is based on Joseph Hlady's keynote at the Canadian Underground Forum (CUF). You can listen to all the talks at CUF on the GeoIgnite CUF Youtube channel.

France's DT DICT system effective in reducing damage to underground utilities during construction

Since 2013 France has implemented a national damage prevention system that requires achieving 40 cm accuracy for the location of all critical underground network infrastructure prior to beginning construction.  Annual statistics reveal a decreasing trend in the amount of underground utility damage since 2013.

The DT DICT system has some superficial similarities to a North American one call system, but is fundamentally different in that the DT DICT process actually improves the quality of the underground location data as it operates.  The Guichet Unique (Téléservice réseaux et canalisations) contains a list of all utility and telecom operators in France, maps of their services areas, and contact information.  At the beginning of each construction project, the project manager must prepare a DT (Déclaration de projet de Travaux), a notification of planned construction work.  Using the information provided by the Guichet Unique, the DT is forwarded to each network operator with equipment in or near the proposed construction site.

All network operators are obliged to respond to the DT within 9 business days. Operators are required to provide all the information in their possession on the location of their existing networks at the proposed site.  Network operators can respond in two ways. They can provide maps of their underground infrastructure compliant with Class A (accurate to 40 cm). But if they are not able to provide compliant maps, they can request that the project manager carry out one or more investigations complémentaires (IC).  In this case the project manager will contract a locate service provider to conduct locate operations with the objective of ensuring Class A compliance for all noncompliant underground utility facilities. The cost of the investigations complémentaires are borne by the network operator or operators.  The important outcome of this process  is that when the project manager is ready to begin excavation, he/she knows the location of all underground infrastructure at the project site to 40 cm or better. 

The IC process also results in improvements to network operators records, because the regulations require that the results of the investigations complémentaires be sent to the relevant network operators within 15 days.  The network operators are required to update their network records with the information provided in the investigations complémentaires.

Underground damage in France

The DT DICT regulations make reporting incidents of underground damage during construction mandatory for network operators. The National Observatory DT DICT compiles these reports annually and issues a network operator dashboard summarizing the damage statistics for the year.

Year	Damage incidents	Year over year change	Total DTs	Damage rate (% of DTs)	% DTs submitted digitally
2013	24,441		3,437,274	0.71 %	29 %
2014	19,317	-21 %	3,263,725	0.59 %	35 %
2015	18,382	- 5 %	3,349,224	0.55 %	85 %
2016	16,994	- 8 %	3,516,665	0.48 %	89 %
2017	16,698	- 2 %	3,750,933	0.45 %	92 %
2018	16,344	- 2 %	3,966,390	0.41 %	93 %
2019	16,025	- 2 %	4,181,769	0.38 %	93 %

The annual damage statistics reveal that although the number of DTs submitted is growing every year, the trend in underground utility damage is decreasing, currently by 2 % per year.

The decreasing trend in underground utility damage in France is in contrast to North America and the Netherlands where the latest statistics reveal little progress in reducing underground utility damage over the past five years in spite of one call and other measures that have been implemented.

Background

I have blogged previously about the French presidential decree in 2012 that mandated that all of France's critical underground utility infrastructure should be mapped to an accuracy of 40 cm (about 16 inches).  Critical infrastructure according to the decree includes buried electric power cables, pipelines, and public transport infrastructure, but not buried water and telecommunications infrastructure. The deadline for urban areas was January 1, 2019 and for non-urban areas January 1, 2026. 

The national regulation requiring mapping of subsurface infrastructure titled Decree relating to excavations near underground, overhead or underwater transmission or distribution networks was promulgated on 15 February 2012. The "anti-network damage" reform, known as "DT-DICT", came into effect on 1 July 2012. The responsibility for implementing the decree lies with a "competent local authority".  Across France different departmental organizations have taken responsibility for implementing the decree. 

Location accuracy classes

The location accuracy classes apply to planimetry (x, y) and altimetry (z). They are defined as follows: -

Class A: structure for which the maximum location uncertainty is less than or equal to 40 cm if it is rigid or 50 cm if it is flexible; the maximum uncertainty is increased to 80 cm for underground civil engineering structures attached to installations intended for the circulation of rail transport vehicles when these structures were built prior to January 1, 2011;

Class B: structure of which the maximum location uncertainty is greater than class A and less than or equal to 1.5 m; the maximum uncertainty is lowered to 1 m for connections to critical underground structures for safety purposes and from January 1, 2021, for connections to non-critical underground structures.

Class C: structure for which the maximum location uncertainty is greater than 1.5 m, or 1 m for connections to critical underground structures for safety purposes and from January 1, 2021, for connections to non-critical underground structures, or for which the operator is unable to provide accuracy information.

UK's bottom-up/top-down approach to creating a voluntary National Underground Asset Registry

Many jurisidictions are recognizing the human and economic cost of not knowing the location of underground utilities and other infrastructure and are looking at legislative, regulatory, technological, business practice and other measures to find ways to ensure the capture and sharing of reliable underground utility location data. An important question that each jurisdiction needs to decide is whether participation in a scheme for compiling and sharing underground infrastructure data should be voluntary or mandatory. The National Underground Asset Register (NUAR) initiative in the UK has adopted a voluntary approach, most likely because it grew out of a initial grass-roots collaboration of asset owners and the organizations involved in working on maintaining embedded asset networks.

Mandatory or voluntary ?

Colorado

Colorado is among the first state/provincial jurisdiction in North America and in the world to mandate a subsurface utility engineering survey (SUE) at the pre-construction stage. Colorado's legislation provides for strong enforcement options. The new regulations mandates the electronic submission to CDOT of a digital plan, typically the result of a SUE survey, showing all physical offsets, both horizontal and vertical, to all existing utilities, including laterals to buildings, before commencing work on a public construction project. Furthermore, the new regulation requires that accurate as-builts, stamped by a PE or PLS, must be submitted electronically to CDOT within 45 days of the completion of work on a public construction project. 

A technical innovation that the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) has adopted and mandated is a mobile and cloud-based hybrid GIS/surveying system for recording and sharing underground utility location data. CDOT requires its construction contractors to use this app so they are all able to view CDOT data in the field and add to the data as new infrastructure is installed or existing infrastructure is located or relocated in preparation for a road or highway project. CDOT now requires that over 150 utility companies and more than 1,000 utility installation stakeholders to also use this app to capture and record the location of underground utilities.  Furthermore, anyone conducting a SUE survey is required to use this app to record underground utility location and other data collected.

Ontario

In Ontario legislation since 2020 provides strong enforcement options when locates are not completed accurately and in a timely manner. In addition legislation provides strong measures for compelling utilities and other infrastructure owners to improve utility treatments and relocations. But instead of adopting a traditional mechanism involving fines and other penalties for noncompliance based on the legislation, Infrastructure Ontario has implemented a new approach to utility coordination by fostering collaboration among utility owners and government agencies.  Infrastructure Ontario 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. Infrastructure Ontario began working with key utilities and telecoms, the Ministry of Transportation, and the transit agency Metrolinx to develop a program to improve utility coordination. 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.  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 primary source of the data is provided by utility and other partners. Metrolinx improves on that data by requring SUE surveys.

Scotland

Scotland has a history of asset owners and roads authorities working collaboratively. For many years this tradition has enabled utilities and telecoms to share details of planned works. In 2012 Scotland implemented 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 and remains voluntary. (One of provisions in the recently passed Transport (Scotland) Bill could make the sharing of data mandatory, but it has not been implemented.)

England and Wales

The National Underground Asset Register (NUAR) initiative in England and Wales has also adopted a voluntary approach to bringing utility owners, government agencies and others together in a collaborative environment to share underground utility data. An important reason that participation is voluntary is this initiative grew out of a bottom-up collaboration among actual asset owners and the organizations involved in working on maintaining embedded asset networks in the North East of England and in London. Feedback from the field was that with the practices currently in place data is delivered inconsistently in terms of scale and content making it difficult to integrate and interpret the data in the field. The strong message from the asset owners and those responsible for maintaining the assets was that a simpler, comprehensive, and standardized approach was required. The NUAR project was formally initiated by the Geospatial Commission, which is part of the Cabinet Office at the heart of the UK government. While NUAR is being driven from government, this is very much picking up on a bottom-up requirement.

NUAR background

In 2018 Northumbrian Water brought network operators and local government agencies in Newcastle upon Tyne together at the Northumbrian Water Group Innovation Festival. The event benefited from a spirit of cooperation which enabled 20 utilities, telecoms, local government authorities to voluntarily sit down at the table to collaborate in developing a shared underground infrastructure map showing the location of water, wastewater, gas, electricity, telecoms and other underground services provided by the network owners.

The UK government created the Geospatial Commission to unlock the significant economic opportunities offered by geospatial data.  The NUAR initiative was very much a case of the coincidence of top down interest in digitalization, in general and specifically around geospatial data, and bottom up initiatives by actual asset owners and the organizations involved in working on maintaining embedded asset networks. The Geospatial Commission built on the grass roots initiative in North East England. In addition the Mayor of London’s Office was awarded a share of £3.9m to create a digital map of the utilities and pipes below ground. Known as London's Underground Asset Register (LUAR), the Mayor’s Office worked closely with utilities, transport providers, and six local authorities to create a shared digital map of underground infrastructure. Together in North East England and Central London some 40 utility and telecom network operators and local government agencies voluntarily collaborated to share their data using a harmonized data model and symbology to enable viewing all underground utilities on a single map.

Since completion of the two pilots the Geospatial Commission has announced that it intends to complete procurement for a National Underground Asset Register by Summer 2021. Initially it plans to develop products for three regions, London, Wales, and the North East of England with the intention to complete a national implementation by 2024.

This post is partly based based on the contribution of Neil Brammall, Geospatial Commission, 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.

UK BIM adoption survey reveals facilities/asset management trails other disciplines

The UK Government as part of its building information modeling (BIM) initiative has said repeatedly that it expects the big payoff of a digital model will be during operations and maintenance, which typically represents 80% of the cost of a facility.  But to date there has been limited uptake of a full lifecycle approach focusing on cost reduction during operations and maintenance. Since 2018 there has been begun to be quantitative evidence of the benefits of a full lifecycle integrated BIM+geospatial approach to construction.

The UK BIM Alliance has just released its State of the Nation Survey 2021 to measure the adoption of information management using BIM across the UK built environment. The survey involved 1,170 total respondents with broad cross sector coverage of 25 organizational roles and functions in construction.

Architecture (165 respondents), general contracting(143) and clients/asset owners (115) were the top three best represented organizational roles of respondents.  Of particular note is that nearly 10% of the respondents were clients/asset owners, which have been typically underrepresented in previous BIM surveys.

Main conclusion

The main conclusion about the adoption of BIM in the UK, which has been mandated for public projects since 2016, is that 65% of respondents report that that they have used BIM on projects. Of these organizations most of them have used BIM on at least half their projects. 60% state that they used BIM on over half of their projects.  This equates to 740+ companies that have adopted BIM for at least half of their projects.  It is not clear from the survey whether firms that are working primarily in the private sector are adopting BIM to the same extent as firms working primarily in the public sector where BIM is mandatory.

Awareness and adoption of BIM among disciplines reveals a considerable range. Not unexpectedly the disciplines/functions with the highest BIM adoption rates are architecture (75%), general contracting(76%), and various engineering disciplines (77-89%).

Facilities/asset management is still lagging in BIM adoption

Facilities/asset management (23 respondents) is less well represented in the survey and the BIM awareness and adoption rate for facilities/asset management (43 %) was among the lowest which suggests that the adoption of BIM by the facilities/asset management industry is still very low.  A survey a few years ago of the Facilities Management (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. The survey suggests that facilities/asset management is still lagging the rest of the industry in adopting BIM and this is inhibiting the broader adoption of a full lifecycle approach to construction.

Accelerating capital investment in new technology for mapping underground infrastructure

The $10 trillion global construction industry is facing a crisis. For many of the world's advanced economies productivity in the construction sector has been stagnant for years.  According to a McKinsey study whereas the average industrial worker adds $37 of value for every hour worked, a construction worker only adds $25. It is estimated that this productivity gap costs the global economy $1.6 trillion every year.

Since the mid 2000s, an increasing proportion of investment in infrastructure has come from private sources; pension funds, insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds which together manage over $60 trillion. According to the World Bank the level of private investment in infrastructure reached about $100 billion by 2015. Private investment expect a financial return and that is driving a growing investment in construction technology to improve productivity.

Historically, investment in research and development by the construction industry has been very low compared to other industries. Several years ago a McKinsey Global Institute study compared the degree of digitalization of nearly 30 industries and concluded that construction ranked at the bottom with hunting.  This is changing. According to McKinsey venture-capital (VC) activity has risen to several billion dollars at the end of 2019 from low levels a decade ago. Specifically VC investment in construction technology far  outpaced the overall VC industry in 2019.

Growing investment in technology for mapping underground utilities

One area that has seen an explosion in the development of new technologies is locating and mapping of underground infrastructure to avoid damage during construction.  It is estimated that not being able to locate information about the location of underground infrastructure cost the US economy tens of billions of dollars every year and is a major risk factor for delays for highway and other linear construction projects.

There are four broad areas of accelerating investment in technology relating to the underground; reality capture, remote detection, mobile + cloud for capturing and sharing location data, and digital twins. Reality capture includes LiDAR and handheld photogrammetry enabling real-time capture of the location of newly installed infrastructure and infrastructure exposed during excavation. Some jurisdictions are using the new reality capture tools to replace traditional paper as-builts with digital point clouds. New detection technology includes inertial or gyro mapping of underground pipe networks, magnetometry using a drone, mapping underground assets using satellite and aerial imagery, quantum effect gravimetry, acoustic locating, advances in ground penetrating radar (GPR) including the ability to capture scans at roadway speeds and software simplifying  the interpretation of GPR scans.  it is estimated that the U.S. spends on the order of $10 billion on locating underground infrastructure prior to and during excavation. Most of this data in not captured and not shared. To address this problem a number of startups have developed mobile  + cloud solutions for capturing underground location data during locate operations, subsurface utility engineering (SUE) surveys, and excavations and sharing this among construction stakeholders. A major area of new technology development is motivated by jurisdictions such as the City of Rotterdam, Estonia and the U.K. that are already developing or plan to develop a digital twin that includes underground and above-ground infrastructure.  This will require large investment in technology to enable real-time monitoring, mapping and data collection, modeling and simulation of entire cities, regions and nations.