Achieving high quality underground infrastructure location data requires accountability

In many jurisdictions worldwide the low quality of underground infrastructure location data has been identified as a top cause of underground utility damage. Existing underground data, most of which is stored in network owners' utility records, is inaccurate, out of date or simply missing.  In North America in a survey of 402 locate professionals better facility maps received nearly unanimous agreement as a top strategy for improving the efficiency and quality of locates.  Singapore's Digital Underground project is unequivocal about the impact of low quality underground location data stating that "virtually all stakeholders are aware that much of the available information is unreliable and that this has repeatedly led to losses of time, money and opportunities." 

Achieving high quality underground infrastructure location data

Singapore

Recognizing the economic and societal impact of inaccurate, outdated and incomplete maps of underground infrastructure, Singapore Land Authority's Digital Underground Project has created a new data governance initiative designed to improve data quality and provide the basis for a national authoritative single source of truth.  Chief among its provisions is the creation of a national Data Quality Hub comprised of a consolidated underground infrastructure database maintained by data flows which enforce data quality management.  Specifically the Data Quality Hub requires all newly captured data on subsurface utilities to undergo quality control based on a defined set of rules before the data is eligible to be included in the database.

North America

According to a recent report from the Next Practices Initiative of the Common Ground Alliance the damage prevention industry has reached an inflection point. For more than half a decade, the rate of damage to underground infrastructure in North America has increased or remained stagnant. The North American one call system has become highly inefficient and industry confidence in the system has been eroded, resulting in a process that has stalled and is not achieving its primary goal of reducing damage to underground infrastructure.

Utility company records comprise the vast majority of the data we have about underground utilities. Much of this data is inaccurate, out of date or simply missing (especially in the case of abandoned infrastructure and infrastructure without a known owner). It is estimated that over $10 billion is spent annually in locating underground utilities and other infrastructure. Most of this is routine locate operations conducted by locators in response to a one call request, but it includes locate operations such as hydro vac services contracted by excavators. Most of this newly acquired data is not recorded or shared. 

To begin to address this crisis by taking positive steps to reduce the frequency and severity of underground strikes in June, 2021 the Infrastructure Health & Safety Association (IHSA) initiated a utility strike Root Cause Analysis and evaluation workshop.  The workshop focused on identifying the primary causal factors of underground strikes. Based on this analysis the group identified five key industry systemic weaknesses that were responsible for underground utility strikes. The workshop made several recommendations to address these systemic weaknesses.

Data quality responsibility

Among the key industry systemic weaknesses identified by the IHSA was lack of accountability.  An essential part of any conversation about data is who is responsible for each data element. When a data source reports that the accuracy of the location of a cable or pipe is within a half a meter horizontally and a meter vertically, I need to know who captured the data, when, with what type of  equipment was used (metadata) and most importantly who took responsibility for the data by signing off for it. If it came from a SUE survey signed by a professional engineer, I will have greater confidence in it than if the data was sourced from utility records with no professional taking responsibility. Furthermore, metadata and a sign-off by a professional enables an informed conversation about whether the newly acquired data is better and should replace the existing record.

One of the things that needs to be clarified in the context of underground infrastructure location data is the roles of locators, professional surveyors and engineers, network operators, and one call centres in collecting and certifying data. For example, Colorado and Montana require as-builts from recently completed public construction projects to be signed off by a professional. In most jurisdictions SUE surveys also must be signed off by a professional. Understanding the equipment used to gather information and the reliability of that technique in that particular project situation is the responsibility of the person putting their sign and seal on the data. To choose and assign the appropriate coordinate system requires a professional surveyor who will also tie that decision in with with the existing project-level coordinates or survey coordinates and make sure it all fits together for the overall project. Assigning quality levels compliant with the ASCE 38 and CSA S-250 here in Canada requires sign off by a professional engineer. In North America professional land surveyors and professional engineers carry insurance that is designed specifically for them in the case of liabilities.

Achieving a high data quality level for existing infrastructure requires upgrading the quality of the huge volume of existing data. Accurate as-builts and SUE surveys will play an important role, but given the huge volume of data, it seems clear that utility owners, locators, municipalities and one call centres will have an essential role to play in upgrading the quality of the data we hold about existing infrastructure. To enable this to happen two recommendations of the IHSA Root Cause initiative are relevant. 

• Identify roles and responsibilities to promote accountability among employers, supervisors, and workers as well as Ontario One Call, utility owners and municipalities.
• Review and enhance practices, procedures and regulations to foster accountability including policies, procedures, and regulations relating to the completion and review of locates prior to excavating and the overall planning and execution of work in the vicinity of underground utilities.

The CGA Next Practices Initiative makes a strong case that a centralized national map of underground infrastructure accessible all construction stakeholders provides systemic benefits with a large ROI for the construction industry. It represents a large opportunity to accurately locate and record location data for the millions of miles of existing underground infrastructure. To do this efficiently will require new and innovative technology for locating existing underground infrastructure, capturing and sharing underground infrastructure information. More importantly it will require policies, procedures, and regulations to promote accountability among everyone involved in locating underground infrastructure and capturing location data including network owners, locators, municipalities, and one call centres.