Between the Poles

First step toward developing a national infrastructure map to enable smart investments

In its 2017 Infrastructure Report Card, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) assigned an overall grade of D+ to U.S. infrastructure. Addressing the problem of bringing national infrastructure up to a standard where it becomes an enabler of economic expansion rather then a drag on the economy is hindered by a lack of systematic information readily available to decision makers on the nation’s inventory of infrastructure assets, their location, and condition. Geospatial data and technology are key to providing an accessible platform making it possible for decision makers to have a uniform view of the nation's infrastructure.  Access to this data is constrained by a variety of factors including the lack of interoperability across systems and proprietary rights. Also, data is often not comparable.  Consequently, infrastructure challenges cannot be assessed in an integrated way or communicated effectively to the relevant decision-makers and constituencies.

Initiative to create a national infrastructure map

To begin to address this challenge National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), Arizona State University (ASU), the American Geographical Society (AGS), and the National Academy of Construction (NAC) partnered to put on an event to convene leaders in public administration, infrastructure development, geography, geospatial, and data integration/open data. Entitled "Building a Shared Map of the Nation’s Infrastructure to Enable Smart Investments" , the event was held at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona.

By way of background NAPA is a congressionally chartered, non-partisan organization with a mandate to make government work better.  After the last presidential election NAPA decided to get out of Washington and talk to people in different levels of government across the country.  NAPA talked to local government people in Sacramento, Austin, Syracuse, and in Virginia and came to the conclusion that there is a need for a national strategy for infrastructure.  Infrastructure is local, but data with the granularity that is required is not available.  Data is uneven, is not integrated and is basically not interoperable.  The challenge is not technical, but one of leadership and effective public administration.  The need for a national strategy was reinforced by the Trump administration's infrastructure plan which appears to only provide federal support for state initiatives.

State of U.S. infrastructure

Introduced by Terry Gerton, President and CEO of NAPA and Jonathan Koppell, Dean, College of Public Programs, Arizona State University, the keynote was delivered by Greg DiLoreto, Former President, American Society of Civil Engineers, who provided an overview of the challenge from the perspective of the latest American Society of Civil Engineers report card.

• Aviation D : Two million passengers are served daily bu U.S. airports, but congestion is growing and it is expected that 24 of the top major airports may experience "Thanksgiving-peak traffic volume" at least one day a week.
• Bridges C+ : The U.S. has 614,387 bridges of which 9.1 % or 56,000 were structurally deficient in 2016.
• Dams D : 17% of U.S. dams or 15,498 have been identified as high-hazard potential dams.  Nationwide, 73 dams failed between 2010 and 2015.
• Drinking water D : There are an estimated 240,000 water main breaks in the U.S. every year and 6 billion gallons of treated drinking water are lost every year.
• Energy D+ : There were 3,571 power outages in the U.S. in 2016. Most electric power infrastructure has exceeded its life-expectancy.
• Hazardous waste D+ : There are over 18,000 hazardous waste sites in the U.S. 53% of the American population live within three miles of a hazardous waste site.
• Inland waterways D : The U.S. has 25,000 miles of inland waterways. 49% of vessels experience delays across the waterway systems.
• Parks and recreation D+ : Seven of ten Americans use park facilities on a regular basis. About $11.9 billion in maintenance has been deferred by the National Park Service because of underfunding.
• Rail B : The U.S. rail industry invested $27.1 billion in infrastructure in 2015. Rail was one of the brighter spots on the report card.
• Roads D : America's road are often congested resulting in Americans spending 6.9 billion hours, or 42 hours per person, stuck in traffic every year.  The The Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE) estimates that over half of the deaths that occur on America's roadways can be blamed on poor road conditions.
• Schools D+ : There are about 100,000 schools in the U.S., serving 50 million K-12 students every day.  About a quarter of public schools are rated to be in fair or poor condition.
• Solid waste C+ : Americans generate 258 million tons of municipal solid waste every year of which 53% ends up in landfill.
• Transit D- : Transit in America is losing ridership in some regions, the result of chronic underfunding which has generated a $90 billion maintenance backlog.

The state of much U.S. infrastructure is poor because of chronic underfunding.  Greg pointed out that China spends more on its infrastructure than North America and Europe combined.  The only real bright spot in the 2017 report card is rail.  There are slight improvements in seven of the categories the ASCE tracks.  But in three sectors the ASCE's lower grade reflects a worsening assessment. Transit, solid waste and parks and recreation have seen a decline since the last report in 2013.  For 2016-2025 the ASCE estimates that there is an investment gap of about $ 2 trillion.  This is the difference between the actual allocated funding and what is needed. 

 

Substandard infrastructure reduces the income of every American.  The ASCE estimates that failure to act will result in a loss of $3.9 trillion to the U.S. economy, which translates to a loss of $3400 per year per family.  The ASCE estimates that to bring U.S. infrastructure up to an acceptable standard would require investment equivalent to a latte per day, or $4 per day, per family. 

 

To fund infrastructure properly requires increasing investment from the current 2.5% of GDP to 3.5%.  Greg emphasized that this will require increased investment from all levels of government and the private sector.  Greg suggested some ways to improve how infrastructure is funded. First, congress should raise the federal motor fuel tax.  This would increase funding of federal highways through the Highway Trust Fund.  Secondly,  the contribution from the federal government should be increased.  When the interstate highway system was built during Dwight D Eisenhower's administration, the federal government provided 90% of the funding.  Since then the funding ratio has been inverted.  Greg also emphasized that when highways are built, full lifecycle cost analysis needs to become standard practice.

 

The good news is the message about the importance of infrastructure to the economy is getting out.  A recent survey found that 87% of Americans think that the federal government should increase its investment in infrastructure.

Update on the Geospatial Act of 2017 presented at GITA Phoenix 2018

The Geospatial Data Act (GDA) of 2017, which was introduced in the Senate (S. 2128) and a companion bill in the House (H.R.4395), has some history. It was originally proposed in 2015 by Orrin Hatch, a Republican Senator from Utah, and sponsored by five Republicans and five Democrats. The 2015 bill consisted of ten sections and basically codified and strengthened federal government practices relating to geospatial data. The 2015 bill enjoyed wide support in the geospatial community throughout the U.S. and was generally viewed as a positive step forward.  In the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, two additional sections were added to the bill that broadly extended the definition of survey data and mandated rules (Brooks Act) for procurement of geospatial services by the federal government.  Virtually the entire GIS and geospatial community reacted strongly and urged that the bill not be passed in its revised form because it would effectively exclude the entire geo community from recording the location of anything.  Since then the bill appears to have been revised back to its original form.  The texts of the latest Senate bill (S. 2128) and House bill (H.R.4395) no longer include Section 11 and 12 which were intended to apply the Brooks Act to a broad range of geospatial data and services.

At the GITA 2018 conference in Phoenix, Mark E. Limbruner, President of Geospatial Information & Technology Association (GITA), gave an update on the Geospatial Data Act of 2017.  As of 11/15/2017 the Senate bill had been read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. The House bill has been referred to the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

To summarize briefly, the bill formalizes the role that the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) shall have in leading the development, implementation, and review of policies, practices, and standards relating to geospatial data. It also establishes the National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC) to provide advice and recommendations to the committee. The FGDC would exercise Federal oversight over federal geospatial expenditure and be responsible for ensuring a coordinated interoperable strategy for geospatial data in the Federal arena.  Each Federal agency would be expected to fit its plan for geospatial data into the FGDC's strategic plan. Four years after enactment of the bill, federal funding would be withheld for the collection, production, acquisition, maintenance, or dissemination of geospatial data that does not comply with the standards established by the committee. The bill also mandates that the FGDC would operate GeoPlatform, an electronic service that would provids access to geospatial data and metadata.

Mark pointed out that if sections 11 and 12 had been retained in the bill, the law could be interpreted so say that only a registered professional (engineer or surveyor) would be legally permitted to capture or manipulate any information tied to a point on the Earth including

• Most GIS, mapping, cartography, and imagery products and data;
• Data that may represented by points, lines, and polygons;
• Data depicting the distribution of natural or cultural resources, features, or phenomena;
• Data utilized by a Federal agencies;
• Data used to create general maps or prepared for atlases, educational materials, etc.
• Geospatial data used by law enforcement
• Geospatial data used by the military;
• Data that may be developed from; GPS units, aerial photography, unmanned aerial vehicles, etc.

Mark said that GITA has opposed the bill the appended procurement language because

• The bill creates an exclusionary  environment
• Has a negative impact on small firms.
• Stifles competition within the dynamic and innovative geospatial sector.
• Ignores the fact that the geospatial industry has implemented several certification programs to insure the ethical and  responsible performance of geospatial services
• Makes no allowance for GISPs to be considered certified professionals.
• Creates an atmosphere where GIS services are merely considered a function of the A&E industry.

Mark said that GITA is supportive of the original Geospatial Data Act because the benefits to federal, state and regional geospatial data users and technology are immeasurable. The combined efforts will elevate the profile of the relevant federal committees and councils, as well as the entire geospatial industry. Mark emphasized that should the  “procurement” language reappear in the bill during further debates, GITA will actively work to defeat the bill.

(Thanks to Glenn O'Grady of URISA for pointing me to the latest version of the Senate Bill.)

Open source viewer sharing all city's geospatial data can run on Raspberry Pi

Locations of Cross Section surveyors' notebooks

At GITA 2018 in Phoenix, Bob Basques, GIS Systems Developer at the City of St Paul, described a system called COMPASS he and his team have developed that provides a shared, easy to use tool that allows city employees and the public access to all of the City's spatial and associated data including, for example, scans of surveyors' notebooks, 2.2 million street level photos, and permitting and licensing information from 200 different applications. Based completely on open source components the system is compact and efficient enough to run on a Raspberry Pi.

One of the problems that hampers efficient operations at municipalities is accessing geospatial data originating from multiple sources such as infrastructure maintenance, planning and zoning, property ownership, engineering, permitting, licensing and code enforcement. Spatial data is generated by CAD drafters, GIS users, surveyors and even users with smart phone apps. Imagery data can come from a variety of sources including earth observation satellites, aerial overflights, street photography, and drones. This data is constantly changing which means that any process that involves making copies such as converting it to a common format creates a bigger problem than it solves.

Location and maintenance data for each street light

The City of Saint Paul is responsible for infrastructure maintenance for all of the infrastructure within the public right-of-way. It is also responsible for maintaining parcel information linking and addressing assignment. St Paul is only 56 square miles, but it is densely developed and there is a lot of infrastructure and the associated regulations to manage. In addition St Paul is part of the metro area of the Twin Cities and users of St Paul data often need access to data outside of St Paul.

Organizations participating in GeoMoose project

The application is intended to improve the efficiency of common tasks including infrastructure maintenance management, planning and zoning, property ownership, engineering, permitting. licensing and code enforcement. To do this the system accesses multiple disparate data sources from different data custodians including Public Works, Safety and Inspections, Planning and Economic Development, Parks & Recreation, Office of Technology, Fire, Police, Real Estate, and District Councils. The public has access to 73 layers of data through OGC web standard interfaces. The tool, called GeoMoose, is an open source project (MIT license) on OSGeo and uses only open source components. There are quite a few governmental agencies around the U.S participating in the GeoMoose project.

Creating a project polygon and buffer to identify affected parcels and owners

The application is extremely compact and light weight - Bob demonstrated it running an a Raspberry Pi with a 64 GB drive (just about any size MicroSD card will work) - which means that users working in areas with restricted wireless can still access important data. GeoMoose runs on Linux and Windoes and can be accessed via Wifi from Windows, Linux, Android, iOS and Mac OS - actually any device with Wifi and a browser including a USB stick. The core of GeoMoose is comprised of HTML and Javascript code. It can access data stored in the file system as well as from OGC WMS/WFS sites over the internet. GeoMoose included an editor that allows users to create geometric objects such as polygons. A typical application would be to define a polygon representing a new project, put a buffer around it and find all the parcels that would be impacted by the project.

The system handles many different data types including 305 layers ( a new layer is added every week or two), 32 live database connections, 39 imagery layers, and 31 infrastructure layers. Besides Public Works users, users from more than 40 other organizations access the system. The system is an OSGeo project and is built on open source components including OpenLayers and MapServer, and can be integrated with PostgreSQL/PostGIS, Webdav, svn and Apache.

Locations of surveyors' notebooks

COMPASS exposes data to the world via OGC standard tools. Most of the data in the COMPASS system of tools is available as a WMS service. Selected datasets are also available as WFS layers. Some layers are protected for security or contractual reasons. GeoMoose 3.0, which was released in August of last year is mobile friendly and supports modern Javascript frameworks such as React.

Digital images of surveyors' notebooks can be accessed

The system has become widely used and trusted. It gets about 50,000 hits per week not only within Public Works but also by other users inside and outside of the city government. It has eased many previously labour intensive processes. Because more users are accessing their data, custodians of the data are taking greater responsibility for data which has led to an overall improvement in data quality and timeliness. Open source has allowed customization for specific users that would not have been possible without access to the underlying code. For example, it has made it possible to create specialized visualizations and reports, connecting to various proprietary databases, mixing data sources on output and building custom lookup processes.

Open source-based mobile viewer creates value for electric power utilities with multiple GISs

One of the challenges faced by large utilities with multiple GIS, outage management, customer information and other systems, which are often the result of mergers, is how to make spatial and associated data, in different, often incompatible systems, accessible to all users not just GIS professionals.  At Distributech 2018 Duke Energy described an off-the-shelf web-based product based on open source components that is being used by 8000 users, 2000 of them using it 24/7 every day, to access GIS and associated data in several GIS systems, both online and offline, using laptops, tablets and phones.  An important advantage of the the selection process Duke used in selecting the product was that it made it possible for a relative newcomer to compete successfully with the traditional GIS incumbents.

Background

Large investor-owned utilities are often the result of mergers. For example, in 2012 Duke Energy and Progress Energy merged to create the largest U.S. utility with 7.4 million U.S. customers and approximately 52,700 megawatts of electric generating capacity. The challenge for the IT folks is how to manage the many disparate IT systems that such mergers bring together. Historically Duke Energy and Progress Energy have employed all the major GIS systems including Synercom, Intergraph FRAMME, GE Smallworld, ESRI, Intergraph GTechnology, and IBM GFIS. Accessing the valuable operational data in multiple systems is a challenge because each system has its own user interface and command structure. Over the years I have seen a number of solutions that have attempted to address the challenge of providing a common viewer for visualizing data from multiple data sources. But each has had limitations, for example, all data had to be synced to a central Oracle database, or it could only run online making it difficult to deploy to the field, or it had limited support for the many GISs and user files used by utilities, or it supported iOS on handheld devices but not Android, or did not support open standards such as OGC WMS and WFS, or did not support Google Maps, or was so complex users required extensive training and it was like pulling teeth to geth them to use iit.

At Distributech 2018 Ron York, Lead Consultant/ GIS, and Francisco Sarmento, Lead Consultant, both at Duke Energy described how Duke has resolved the problem of a common viewer for several different GIS systems which was brought to a head by the merger of Duke and Progress. They also described the somewhat unusual process by which Duke selected the vendor whose product provided the successful solution.

Open source geospatial components

A key differentiator of the product Duke chose is that it is leverages open source components; PostGIS, GeoServer and Leaflet being the main ones. The product builds on the collective wisdom, code and support provided by the worldwide open source geospatial community.  Leaflet is the leading open-source JavaScript library for mobile-friendly interactive maps. PostGIS adds spatial capabilities to the PostgreSQL relational database. It extends PostgreSQL so it can store, query, and manipulate spatial data. GeoServer is a web server that allows maps and data in a variety of formats to be served to standard clients such as web browsers and desktop GIS programs. Data is published via Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standard interfaces, such as WMS and WFS.  These are all Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGEO) projects.

Multiple GIS support

The product Duke selected supports ESRI ArcGIS, GE Smallworld, Intergraph GTechnology, spatialNET and Google Maps. At Duke it is used to access data in a couple of GISs as well as non-GIS data in Maximo, SAP, three different outage management systems, four or five customer information systems, and can link to CAD drawings and photos and images.  Importantly for engineering users it preserves the original symbology and background maps of the different GIS systems.

Online and offline

Another key advantage of Duke's solution is that it can run equally well offline and online and is able to seamlessly combine and switch between online and offline data.

Mobile and office devices

It supports mobile as well as office devices, running on laptops, tablets and phones running iOS, Android, and Windows. The user interface adapts automatically for each device, displaying map layers, forms and other data in a way that is appropriate for each device.

Synced or direct access to databases

It provides two ways of accessing data; one is to periodically import or sync data into the system's spatial database, which uses PostGIS, and the other is to directly access the data via a web service. It supports ESRI REST Services, which are used by ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Enterprise, and the industry standard OGC WMS and WFS web services, which are supported by all major geospatial vendors.

It does not support direct edit of spatial data, but does allow a GIS data correction requests to be routed through Maximo following Duke standard business procedure for making corrections.

It is flexible enough to support different business processes for collecting and organizing data. For example, pole inspections are conducted by circuit in what was Progress service territories and by square area in what was Duke's service territory.

Simplicity of use

Another of the key differentiators of Duke's web-based solution is that it is not targeted on GIS professionals, but on the 95% of people within Duke who can get a lot of value from a really simple Google Maps style interface onto their enterprise data.

Leading up to and during deployment Duke put on road shows, made web demos available online, utilized computer-based-training, and provided job-aid documents to make people aware of the new system.  The tool caught on surprisingly rapidly. Within five months of it being deployed there were 5000 users. Currently there are 8000 users with over 2000 users accessing it 24/7 every day.

Anticipated and unanticipated benefits

The major expected benefit that was realized by the system is that eases the integration of Duke and Progess. All GIS asset data is exposed through a single tool to designers and asset engineers. But there were some unanticipated benefits as well.  It has had a direct impact on tax calculation - it shortened the cycle for internal auditors to complete tax assessments.  It is also widely used during storms and other natural disasters. It enables crews from different area to use a familiar tool to analyze unfamiliar data in areas where they haven't been before.  It is used to provide driving directions for field crews.  Storm managers overlay outages, assets, flood plains, wind, rain, traffic  and other maps for situational assessment.  It allows manager to share staging sites during storms. It has also  proved extremely useful in locating "unmatched outages" - outages called in by first responders with just an address.

Process for choosing a vendor levels playing field for new entrants

Duke used an interesting process to select the vendor. Preliminary vendor interviews were conducted to exclude vendors that clearly didn't have a solution that could meet Duke's needs. Remote web demos provided a cheap and easy way to narrow down the list of vendors. A request for proposal (RFP) process was used to solicit technical-only proposals from product vendors. (Duke was only interested in off-the-shelf products not bespoke solutions.)  Duke picked the top five and asked them to come to Duke for a scripted demonstration. Instead of asking the vendors for a benchmark demonstrating how their product would address Duke's requirements using Duke data, they asked the vendors to demonstrate their product using their own data. They picked the top two vendors and began contract negotiations to decide on one vendor which turned out to be Ubisense MyWorld, a relatively new entrant in the geospatial world.  An important advantage of the selection process Duke used is that it made it possible for a relative newcomer to compete successfully with traditional GIS incumbents.

Key registry created in the Netherlands to help model the subsurface

Increasing urbanization throughout the world challenges the sustainable development and resilience of cities. Despite this, the importance of the ground beneath cities is often overlooked.  A lot of information about the underground is captured during excavation and drilling. But this data is typically stored in project or private databases and is not shared. Capturing this data in a shared, open database is a first step toward developing a model of the subsurface that can be reliably used for urban planning, design, construction and maintenance.  The Netherlands has recently embarked on a national program supported by legislation and standards to do just that.

At the preconference workshop “Utilizing subsurface data for urban planning, design, construction and maintenance” organized by Geodan and TNO at the GEO|Design+BIM conference in Amsterdam, Michiel van der Meulen of the COST Sub-Urban program presented an overview of a new program supported by legislation to develop and maintain an open database of information about the subsurface in the Netherlands.

Current data about the subsurface in the Netherlands comes from borehole logs, cone penetration tests, and groundwater measuring points. Most of the currently available information about the subsurface in the Netherlands comes from boreholes drilled typically to over 100 meters using light drilling equipment as well as some boreholes to much greater depths using heavy drilling equipment. This information is available for free through the DINOloket of the TNO, Geological Survey of the Netherlands.

Based on interpolating from the existing borehole data, there are several models of the subsurface in the Netherlands developed by the Geological Survey of the Nethelands. For example, there is a model of the subsurface down to 50 meters. It has a resolution of 100 by 100 by half a meter. It was intended to assist in identifying aquifers and gas fields. This is too course for city planning purposes. What an urban planner needs is much higher resolution and that will require more data.

In 2015 a new law was passed by the States General or parliament in the Netherlands creating a Basisregistratie Ondergrond (BRO) or Key Registry for the Subsurface. The law mandates that if you excavate or drill you have to share your data (relating to soils, geotechnics, and groundwater) with the registry. In addition if when using the data in the registry you find something is incorrect you have to report it. The registry is required to be open and accessible to all citizens of the Netherlands. This new registry will require new standards for recording data and there is a major effort underway in the Netherlands to develop these standards. The implementation of the new subsurface registry will begin in 2018.

The Key Registry for the Subsurface or BRO is intended to provide transparent and accessible information about the subsurface. It is subject to the government's open data policy. In addition to providing data for urban planning, design, construction and maintenance, it is intended to include an inventory of opportunities and risks relating to subsurface, provide data for sustainable water management and to support the governments goal of moving toward a carbon neutral economy at the national regional and local levels. It is also intended to reduce the costs associated with infrastructure management for soil remediation.

The overall goal is to initiate the process of organizing an information chain that will harness geological survey and city efforts in building databases and creating the necessary standards for information production about the subsurface. But to better serve cities with the subsurface information they need, Michiel van der Meulen said that we need to rethink geological mapping, rethink urban information management, and create new alliances among organizations involved in urban development. The new BRO key registry is an important first step in the process of developing models of the subsurface that can be joined seamlessly with above surface information to create the comprehensive digital twins that will be required by the smart cities of the future.

Major expansion in shareability of project information in construction

One of the challenges to the full expression of collaboration on construction projects is sharing information including geometry, properties, scans in the form of reality meshes, descriptions and status of equipment, and other information. In the dark ages of design information exchange was by paper.  At one time $2 billion of FedEx business was shipping paper drawings between project teams.  The next step was converting paper drawings to PDF files which enabled drawings and other information to be sent electronically rather than relying on FedEx.  But the data in PDF remains opaque to applications such as AutoCAD, Microstation, Revit, Microsoft Excel, and other applications which only know how to read application-specific DWG, DGN, RVT, or XLS files.  iModels are Bentley's way of packaging project information, in the form of application-readable file formats, in a container that can be shared with other project teams. There are iModel plugins for other vendors' products, such as Revit, for example, which enables rich data to be exchanged between Revit and Bentley BIM.

iModel Version 1.0, which is widely used as evidenced by the the number of submissions to the Be Inspired awards that uses it, comprises a collection of files. Each file is accessible to the application that created it, for example, Microstation or Revit, but not to others.

Yesterday in his keynote at the Year in Infrastructure 2017 (YII2017) conference, Greg Bentley, CEO of Bentley, announced iModel 2.0 and this morning Keith Bentley, who is the founder of Bentley, described what  iModel 2.0 is technically. It is no longer a collection of files, but a relational database. This enables all the information to be queried by all applications, not just the one that created the data.

Furthermore, Keith described iModelHub which adds data versioning making iModel 2.0 a versioned database which records changes in the data. iModelHub allows you to compare different versions to see what has changed. This is a powerful capability for construction projects which are constantly changing but which need to enable managers (and lawyers) to know what changed and when.

The is a very important advance which will allow much richer information to be shared by many applications. Additionally, iModelHub enables iModels to be shared via the cloud which dramatically expands accessibility to project information especially when used in conjunction with a collaboration enabler such as Bentley's ProjectWise.

Importance of implementing cybersecurity for engineering projects using BIM

At GeoBusiness 2017 in London, Hugh Boyes, a Cyber Security specialist outlined some of the security risks of digital engineering and the importance of cybersecurity for engineering projects.  BIM models, floorplans and 3D LiDAR scans of sensitive buildings and infrastructure can often be found on the web.  He mentioned the floorplan of a major police station, a BIM model of a young offenders facility, and a BIM model of the Victoria Underground station.  All of these could potentially be very useful to anyone interested in disrupting infrastructure.  It is well-known that mapping underground infrastructure reduces risk during construction and also during disasters, natural and man-made.  However, it can also provide information about sensitive infrastructure.  Hugh mentioned substations as particularly sensitive elements of the energy grid.  With traditional centralized generation, substations are critical elements of the grid and are particularly vulnerable.  In many countries disrupting a small number of large substations can leave significant parts of the country without power.   (An advantage of a decentralized grid comprised of many microgrids with their own generating and storage facilities is that it is much less vulnerable.)

For people who are designing and building sensitive infrastructure using BIM, he recommended following the PAS1192-5 guidelines and incorporating security into the design from the start.  PAS 1192-5 specifies processes which will assist organizations in identifying and implementing measures to reduce the risk of loss or disclosure of information which could impact the safety and security of personnel and users of infrastructure or the built infrastructure itself.  PAS 1192-5 is applicable to any built asset or portfolio of assets which is deemed sensitive. It is for use by asset owners and organizations involved in the design, construction, maintenance and management of built assets, especially those who wish to protect their commercial information and/or intellectual property.  Hugh is the joint technical author of BS PAS1192-5 - Specification for security-minded building information modelling, digital built environments and smart asset management.

U.S. congressional bill to restrict access to open geospatial information

A bill has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives that specifically targets open access to geospatial information.  It intends to do this by nullifying a regulation under the Civil Rights Act of 1968 that provides open access to data that enabled the public to identify and monitor housing discrimination, patterns of of integration and segregation in housing.

The Civil Rights Act, signed into law by Lyndon Baines Johnson in April 1968,  contains a provision (Title VIII commonly referred to as the Fair Housing Act of 1968) that prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin and sex.  Among other things the Act required the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to affirmatively further the goals of fair housing. In 2015 HUD published the "final rule" to provide clear guidelines on what fair housing and equal opportunity meant in practice.  It also committed to providing the data necessary to measure compliance with the final rule.  Specifically, to aid communities in assessing fair housing, HUD committed to providing "open data to grantees and the public on patterns of integration and segregation, racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty, disproportionate housing needs, and disparities in access to opportunity."

On January 12 of this year a bill was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, HR 482, that is intended to nullify the final rule on affirmatively furthering fair housing (AFFH).  If enacted, the bill would require that "no Federal funds may be used to design, build, maintain, utilize, or provide access to a Federal database of geospatial information on community racial disparities or disparities in access to affordable housing."  Some see this not only as a first step in reducing the regulatory efficacy of the Civil Rights Act, but in restricting access to what has been open information, specifically, open geospatial information or maps of certain types.

Bentley Systems and AGI support open source 3D geospatial

Back in 2006 Autodesk was the leading sponsor supporting the formation of the Open Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) in order to open geospatial technology to a wider audience.  Now Bentley Systems has joined with AGI to form the Cesium Consortium.  The consortium was started to accelerate open-source Cesium development and support long-term open-source Cesium sustainability.

AGI developed Cesium, which is a JavaScript library for creating 3D globes and 2D maps in a web browser without a plugin. Cesium is open source under the Apache 2.0 license.

Future of Utilities: Utility asset management will be based on shared geospatial platform

Currently geospatial data and technology are used tactically by electric power utilities for many purposes including outage management, vegetation management, disaster management, renewable energy facility siting, universal electrification planning, asset management, and energy density mapping, to name just a few.  But the smart grid is fundamentally transforming the role of geospatial data and technology in electric power utilities. According to a report from Navigant Research “The smart grid is all about situation awareness and effective anticipation of and response to events that might disrupt the performance of the power grid. Since spatial data underlies everything an electric utility does, GIS is the only foundational view that can potentially link every operational activity of an electric utility including design and construction, asset management, workforce management, and outage management as well as supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), distribution management systems (DMSs), renewables, and strategy planning.”  In other words the smart grid makes geospatial strategic.  Location is the basis on which data is organized and spatial analytics is how information is extracted from the data.  As Bradley Williams has so succinctly put it, "spatial analytics is becoming a key technology for electric utilities because everything a utility does - customers, assets, and operations - involves location."

At the Future of Canada's Utilities Summit in Toronto I had the opportunity to chat with Alexander Bakulev, VP of Strategy and Assets at METSCO, in Mississisaug, Ontario about asset management, location and GIS, and the future of utility IT.  Alex has deep experience with asset management at utilities in Ontario and as VP of Strategy he brings a forward-looking perspective to the changing role of location and GIS in asset management in electric power utilities. 

Alex, what type of asset management service does METSCO provide to your customers ?

We provide a framework for asset management based on a methodology, risk-based asset management. When a decision needs to be made such as whether to replace an asset or maintain it and run it to failure, those decisions are made by engineers to mitigate the risk of failing as well as for safety and environmental reasons. We enable our customers to translate those risks into dollars so they can compare dollars to dollars and make an economic decision whether to replace or maintain an asset.  Of course, this has to be done within a regulatory environment.  In Ontario this means PSAB 3150 and ISO 55000.

Can you give a perspective on how advanced your customers are with respect to asset management ?

Asset data

We have a maturity hierarchy that helps us understand where a utility company is in managing its assets.  When we begin working with a customer, the first thing we look at is their asset data, what do they have, in what media, and where it resides.  Companies have different maturity in term of the asset records they have and how they manage them. Usually what we see is that companies may have good inspection data, but the information is stored in a decentralized mode -  paper documents, Excel spreadsheets, special lab-testing software files, and so on - but not in a centralized system. In many cases we have to compile paper documents and files to order to combine it all into a centralized asset management system.  But we see that is changing. Companies are starting to invest in document management systems and capturing data digitally. They are also collecting data with mobile devices in a way that goes directly to the online ERP system.  In addition newer equipment is smarter and able to report inline so it's a paperless process.

Risk of failure

Once you have the basic information about the condition of each asset, the next step is to try to predict each asset's failure probability. We want to understand what's the chance that they will fail next year, after 5 years,  or 10 years.  If the company has historical data on failures including the type of asset, when it failed and why it failed, we can use that information to statistically predict failures.  To do this we first find data about which assets have been replaced. Then we try to determine the reasons why the assets were replaced. Often this information is even less available than condition information. With this information we can estimate the expected failure rate for existing assets.

Consequence of failure

Once you know the risk for every asset to fail, the next step is to look at the consequence of failure.  We not only look at what is being fed downstream from an asset such as a transformer, but also at the protection schema on the feeder.  For example, when a radial feeder fails, the result is a minimum of 4 hours outage.  If it the feeder is a loop design, the outage may only be 30 minutes. If the feeder is automated, the outage could be seconds.  And it may not be just power that customers lose, there could also be environmental and safety issues. For example, if a corner pole fails, the consequences are more serious than a pole in a street line. There are also financial factors. How fast do you need to replace the asset ? Do you keep it in stock or order it ?  For expensive assets, it is very expensive to keep spares in a warehouse.

Monetized risk

Once we know the condition of each asset, the probability that it will fail, and the consequence of failure,  we can monetize the risk. With monetized risk, when we have to make a decision, we make an economic decision.  Maybe it's better to run to failure, or increase the frequency of maintenance to watch the asset closer and accept the risk of failure for the next 5 years and after that replace it, or if it is high risk, replace the asset immediately. 

It sounds like you can classify utility companies based on the data they have and how they use it to make decisions ?

We have a maturity model that helps us determine where a customer is so we can determine how best to help them.

Run to failure -  Assets are only replaced when they fail.  From the perspective of financial costs, this alternative looks good, but if you look at customer value, the cost is very high.  There are many unplanned outages of relatively long duration.

Age-based - In this case assets are replaced based on the age of each asset.  In this case investment requirements can be three times higher than run to failure, but the customer is benefiting by improved service.  There are much fewer unplanned outages.

Condition-based - With this approach you only replace assets that are in poor condition. Investment requirements are less than age-based, but still quite high compared to run to failure.  Customer value is similar to age-based.

Risk-based -  For example, you may decide to run 70 % of assets to failure in those areas where there is low risk, but for the 30% of assets that are high risk, you try to avoid any failures. This requires focussed investments.  Investment requirements are significantly lower than condition-based, but still higher than run to failure.  But with this alternative, customer value is optimal within the budgeted investment level.

Where are most of your customers also in the maturity model when you first start working with them ?

When we first begin to work with them, most are somewhere between age-based and condition-based. Many are making age-based decisions, but are trying to move to condition-based asset management for many asset classes.  Surprisingly there are some large companies that still follow a run to failure approach.  We have customers that have gotten to the highest level, risk-based asset management, and we have helped them get there.

What size utility finds it easiest to do this ?

In our experience, mid-sized utilities - with half a million to a million meters - find this transition easiest.  They are more flexible.  For large utilities the transition  is challenging because it they have to change what they have been doing for the past ten years, mostly age and condition-based asset management, and they have implemented large expensive systems to help them do that.

How does location and GIS fit onto this ?

Location and GIS are fundamental in several areas of asset management.  First of all geospatial technology provides a communication tool.  Most critically geospatial visualization is used to justify investments. It makes it possible to show stakeholders high risk areas. It makes it possible to show people recommended investments and where to invest.  

Secondly, it helps to plan for the future.  By visualizing changing demographics it helps identify what parts of a city require investment. For example, if in the next 10 years most of the work is going to be done in a particular rapidly growing area of the city, it can be planned for by creating a yard in the area, for example.

We also use GIS for core planning.  When engineers are designing the electric power network for a new subdivision, they require very detailed information about existing electric power assets in and near the area.  This information is collected from many different sources and visualized on a map.  The engineers can look at the risk profile of every existing asset on the map and start planning which assets need to be replaced immediately, which in five or ten years, and where they need to install new equipment.

Another critical area for GIS is connectivity,  Connectivity is about which customers are connected to which service point, which service points are downstream from each transformer, and which transformers are on each feeder.  Connectivity information is essential because it enables utilities to know who is affected by a planned or unplanned outage. It also provides a link between customers and infrastructure for financial planning purposes.   Many utilities don't have reliable connectivity information or they think they do but really don't.  GIS is the primary tool that we use to establish or correct connectivity.

Another critical area that is growing in importance for GIS is spatial analytics.   GIS can help estimate the condition of assets and identify high risk assets. For a simple example, in a tabular ERP system, all poles are the same, but in the GIS we can see some poles are corner poles which are higher risk.  As another example, if an asset is near a highway which is salted in winter, this can affect the condition of the asset. Here we are getting into predictive analytics where we can make estimates based on proximity to things that may affect the expected lifetime of assets.  In this case assets near roads with salt in winter are at higher risk.

What's your perspective on the future for utility asset management  ?

Many companies are beginning to see the advantage of the mapping environment for asset management. In the past asset management was pretty much done with Excel or similar table-based tools. What we are seeing now is that increasingly decisions are being made based on maps, increasingly interactive maps.  There are several drivers for this.

The first driver is simplification.  Asset management is simpler when you put everything on a map.  And for the new generation of engineers, maps facilitate knowledge transfer - it 's easier for them to design, manage and maintain the grid with assets visulaized on a map.

The other driver is grid complexity.  With the smart grid and distributed energy generation, the grid is getting much more complicated. There is a lot more data that needs to be analyzed.  Thefe are also increasingly complex reporting requirements from the regulator.  There should be one environment that can handle all of this - data management, analytics, and regulatory reporting.  Maps help alleviate complexity and achieve simplification.

Do you foresee in the future that utility applications such as outage management, customer information system, crew management and dispatch systems, and others will be best of breed or an integrated solution from a single vendor ?

The future as I see it is all about map-based decisions - where are the outages, where are our marketing opportunities, where are assets likely to fail, where do our employees live, where are the customers that have lost power, where should we position crews in preparation for a storm ?   To enable this to happen, I believe the future for utility IT is a map-based platform which applications like asset management, design, outage management, and disaster management from different vendors can plug into and share information in a shared geospatial environment.