Between the Poles

Mapping urban underground utility infrastructure with GPR

About three years ago at the GI_Forum Symposium in Salzburg, Paolo Viskanic of R3 GIS gave a presentation about a ground breaking project to map underground infrastructure that had been underway in the Region of Lombardy in Northern Italy.  This project was kicked off by a pilot project to map all underground infrastructure on the site of Expo Milano in preparation for the 2015 event in Milan.  

What I didn't realize at the time was that this was a joint presentation with Enrico Boi of IDS GeoRadar.  Enrico, who was responsible for the ground penetrating radar (GPR) scanning part of the project, wasn't able to make it to Salzburg.  Paulo explained to me repeatedly that I should talk to his co-author from IDS about the GPR scanning, but somehow I never managed to until last week.  At the annual Hexagon conference HxGN Live in Anaheim I finally met Enrico.  ( At HxGN Enrico gave a fascinating presentation on the application of radar to detect and monitor slope instabilities. )

In recent years IDS Georadar has been in the forefront of technical development in GPR and the Milan pilot project was a ground breaking project that demonstrated the benefits of using GPR to map underground utility infrastructure in an urban environment.  For the Milan pilot project all underground infrastructure in the project area (230 000 square meters) including electric power, water, sewers, gas, district heating, street lighting, and telecommunication were mapped both from historical records and using IDS's ground penetrating radar (GPR) technology.    A data model for underground infrastructure was developed for the different types of underground networks based on the Italian DigitPA and the INSPIRE US utility standards.

Comparison of GPR scan with historical records

The most fascinating part of the project was the comparison of the historical records with the results captured by GPR.  Enrico's analysis revealed significant discrepancies in the historic record including thousands of meters of unknown infrastructure.  For the known infrastructure the average error in geolocation was about 30%, but much larger errors of up to 100% were also recorded.  The conclusion is that even in Europe the record of underground infrastructure can be highly unreliable. 

 

In addition that GPR could identify previously unknown underground infrastructure can provide financial motivation for municipalities to invest in underground scanning because utilities are taxed by municipalities based on the total infrastructure the utilities maintain within city limits.

Return-on-investment

The other ground breaking part of the pilot project was an economic analysis of the costs and benefits of applying GPR to detect the location of underground infrastructure.  The analysis estimated that the return on investment is about €16 for every euro invested in improving the reliability information of underground infrastructure.  For comparison the ROI in the United States has been estimated to range from up to $21 for every dollar invested. The analysis also emphasized other important, but non-quantifiable benefits including better safety for both workers and the public as well as fewer traffic disruptions.

 

Hexagon has worked with IDS for years and is in the process of acquiring IDS' GeoRadar division, which developed and manufactures the Stream EM array among other radar technology. 

Benefits of California's net metering policy

To encourage Californians to invest in renewable energy such as solar PV, California implemented a policy of net metering.  Basically what this means is that customers who install solar PV panels on their roofs and sell excess power to the local power utility are reimbursed at the prevailing retail power rate.

This is set to change.  Bill AB 327 requires the California Public Utility Commission(CPUC) to implement a new policy that continues to encourage customer-sited renewable distributed generation, but that strives to equitably distribute the costs of renewable generation. 

GTM Research has analyzed the impact of net energy metering on the annual electricity bill of PG&E customers with 5-kilowatt (kW) solar PV systems in Bakersfield, Merced, Salinas, San Jose, Santa Rosa and Stockton.  They used real hourly energy consumption data from OpenEI and energy production data from PVWatts, as well as the actual PG&E tariff schedule for residential customers with retail time-of-use rates.  They assumed that the cost of installation was $20,500 and that each installation had a lifetime of 30 years.

Their analysis found that with net energy metering using the retail power rate, installing solar PV saves the customers they analyzed $700 to $1,000 (54 % to 85 %) on their annual electricity bill compared to no net metering.  It is interesting to compare this to Arizona Public Service's recent proposal to rent customer rooftops for $30/month, or $360/year.

The reformed policy that will replace current net metering is not yet well-defined, so GTM Research looked at some alternatives that satisfy AB 327 guidelines.   GTM concluded that net energy metering reform would have an enormous impact on the economics of residential solar.  They found that reimbursing solar customers for excess electricity in the worst case, in other words the lowest rate, would increase the payback period for installing solar PV from the current ten to eleven years to nineteen to twenty-four years.   While GTM believes that the worst case scenario is unlikely, the analysis demonstrates how sensitive the economics of customer-installed solar is to the price paid for excess power by the utility.

Benefit-cost analysis for estimating ROI from GIS for local government

At the GITA Pacific Northwest Annual Conference in Mukilteo, Washington, Greg Babinski, Finance Manager for the King County GIS Center (KCGIS), gave an overview of benefit-cost analysis of the financial value add of GIS.  The study was lead by Professor Richard Zerbe of the Benefit-cost Analysis Center at the University of Washington Evans School of Public Affairs. Professor Zerbe has developed a methodology for determining the costs and benefits of a variety of things that municipal and other governments are responsible for.

Some of the areas that the KCGIS is reponsible for include mapping, public information delivery, growth management and planning, property assessment, land development permitting, site selection, simulating environmental conditions, emergency response planning, crime analysis, transportation planning, bus and van routing, road maintenance management, public health service delivery, service center location analysis, E911 operations, airport sound abatement, boundary management (legislative districts, voter precincts, tax unit boundaries), and so on.

According to Greg, the study was jointly funded by the Oregon Geospatial Information Officer (Cy Smith) and King County.  Both Cy and Greg have been involved with a URISA effort to quantify the benefits of geospatial data and technology in the context of local government.  The New Zealand study on the value of geospatial information to the New Zealand economy was an inspiration to try to do something similar at the local government level.

The approach used by Professor Zerbe was to estimate the cost of providing these services with and without GIS.  The study involved a literature survey and about 30 qualitative interviews with agency heads and key employees to set the stage for 200 quantitative interviews with employees and managers all across the Kong County government.  The quantitative questionnaire solicited quantitative estimates of the benefits that have been realized across different groups of users of GIS applications, as opposed to what these users would have done in the absence of GIS applications.  By comparing the “with and without” scenarios, the study team was able to estimate the added value provided by the GIS applications.  Fortunately King County had maintained very good records of the expenditures on GIS hardware, software, and staff over the past 18 years so there was a lot of confidence about the cost side of the analysis.  Interview and survey results were compiled by output type, agency, and productivity levels. Results were then monetized.

Examples of the type of questions employees were asked to answer

• How many units of this output do you personally produce? Choose # of units:
• How many units of this output do you personally produce Per Unit of Time:
• What percent of your time do you spend producing each output now? (%)
• What percent of your time do you spend producing each output now:  Per Unit of Time:
• Number of Employees in your workgroup (including you) currently producing this output:
• Total FTEs in your workgroup (including you) currently producing this output:

The report found that GIS expenditures of about $215 million provided a conservative estimate of net benefit of about $775 million in net benefits over the 18 year period 1992 to 2010.  (The estimated net benefit ranged from a very conservative $775 million through almost $5 billion.)

The use of GIS at an annual cost of about $15 million, compared to not having a GIS, had a net benefit of about $87 to $180 million for the year 2010.  That's a return on investment (ROI) of between 6 and 12.  The benefits were broken down into cost-savings due to more efficient production of original output and benefits generated from increased productivity beyond the original production level.

This type of study, which can be expressed as a return on investment, is critical for geospatial projects because governments increasingly are using ROI as a way of prioritizing the allocation of scarce resources.  Typical ROIs are in the range of 2 to 4, so if a GIS project is projected to generate an ROI in the range of 6 to 12, all other considerations being equal, it will tend to get funded before a project with a lower ROI.  KCGIS offers a URISA certified workshop for IT Directors/Managers, GIS Managers, decision makers and operational personnel on quantifying return on investment.

Mapping underground infrastructure in Northern Italy

I have blogged numerous times about the challenge of accurately geolocating underground utilties. Most recently I blogged about the estimated ROI for investment in improving the geolocation and other information about underground utilities and the project of the City of Las Vegas to create a 3D model of its underground utilities

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At the GI_Forum Symposium in Salzburg, Paolo Viskanic of R3 GIS gave a presentation about a remarkable project that has been underway for the past ten years in the Region of Lombardy in Northrn Italy.

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A pilot project was carried out on the site of the Expo Milano 2015 event in Milan. The total project area is about 230 000 square meters. All underground infrastructure including electric power, water, sewers, gas, district heating, street lighting, and telecommunication, were mapped both from historical records and using ground penetrating radar (GPR).  GPR appears to work better in the EU for detecting underground infrastructure because the transmitter power is not s restricted as in the United States.  A data model for underground infrastructure was developed for the different types of underground networks based on the Italian DigitPA and the INSPIRE US utility standards.

Most of the data is 2D, but some 3D data has been recorded and used to demonstrate 3D visualization.

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Comparison of the historical records with the results captured By GPR revealed signicant discrepancies in the historic record including thousands of meters of unknown infrastructure.  For the known infrastructure the average error in geolocation was about 30%, but much larger errors of up to 100% were also recorded.  The conclusion is that even in Europe the record of underground infrastructure can be highly unreliable.  That the exercise identifies underground infrastructure that had been previously unknown to the municipalities provides some financial motivation for municipalities because they tax utilties based on the total infrastructure the utilties manitain within city limits.

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The data has been made available on the Web via OGC standard protocols and formats (WMS, WFS, KML).  The web site has been implemented entirely using open source software.

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Return-on-investment

An economic analysis of the data has been been carried out and the estimated return on investment is about €16 for every € invested in improving the reliability information of underground infrastructure.  For comparison the ROI in the United States has been estimated to range from $3 to $21 for every dollar invested. Other benefits include improved safety for workers and the public and fewer traffic disruptions.

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Lessons learned

Paulo emephasized that there are several critical factors that are required to enable a project like this to be successufl.  A clear legal framework is absolutely essential.  In addition it is necesary to ensure that all stakeholders are involved.  In the case of Lombardy this means EU, national, regional, provincial, and municipal governments.

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Next steps

This is now mandatory for all municipalities in Lombardy,  which means that the municipalities will need to map their underground infrastructure by the end of next year.  To date about 200 of 1544 municipalities in Lombardy or about 10% have completed mapping their underground infrastructure.

ROI of up to $21 per dollar invested in improving accuracy of geolocation of underground utilities

I blogged recently about a remarkable effort by the City of Las Vegas to create an accurate 3D model of the underground infrastructure of the city.  An important question is what are the quantified benefits of improving the reliability of the geolocation and condition information about underground utilities ?  As part of an effort in Australia to improve the reliability of information about underground utilities, the standards committee investigated the available evidence for quantified benefits.

Australia Subsurface Utility Engineering Information Standard

In May 2010, Standards Australia Committee IT-036, Subsurface Utility Engineering Information began developing a new Australian Standard, AS 5488—201X, Classification of Subsurface Utility Information (SUI).

The motivation for this standards effort was the lack of reliable information during design and construction activities that can result in costly conflicts, delays, utility service disruptions, redesigns, personal injuries to workers, and even lost lives.  The fundamental problem is that the location of subsurface utilities often appears on design plans, but they are based on notoriously unreliable as-builts.

To address this issue Standards Australia (SA) began developing an Australian Standard for the practice of Subsurface Utility Engineering (SUE).  SUE is an engineering process that combines civil engineering, geophysics, survey and CADD/GIS and provides much more accurate information on the location and condition of subsurface utilities than has been traditionally available.

As part of this effort SA committee researched the quantifiable benefits attributable to SUE.  They found three studies that attempted to quantify the return on investment in improving the quality of subsurface utility data, including location and condition of assets.

USDOT - ROI of $4.62 per $1.00 invested

According to a USDOT sponsored survey conducted by Purdue University in 1999 (Cost Savings on Highway Projects Utilizing Subsurface Utility Engineering), two broad categories of savings emerged from using SUE — quantifiable and qualitative savings. The Purdue study quantified a total of US$4.62 in avoided costs for every US$1.00 spent on SUE. Although qualitative savings (for example, avoided impacts on nearby homes and businesses) were not directly measurable, the researchers believed those savings were significant, and arguably many times more valuable than the quantifiable savings.

Ontario Sewer and Watermain Contractors Association - ROI of $3.41 per $1.00 invested

In 2004 in Canada, the Ontario Sewer and Watermain Contractors Association commissioned the University of Toronto to investigate the practice of using SUE on large infrastructure projects in Ontario. This study, entitled Subsurface Utility Engineering in Ontario: Challenges and Opportunities, determined that the average rate of return for each dollar spent on SUE services on those projects that could be quantified was $3.41.

Pennsylvania DOT - ROI of $21.00 per $1.00 invested

In 2007, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation commissioned Pennsylvania State University to study the savings on Pennsylvania highway projects that used SUE in accordance with the mapping provisions of the American standard. In their unpublished report, Subsurface Utility Engineering Manual, Pennsylvania State University found a return on investment of US$21.00 saved for every US$1.00 spent for SUE when elevating the quality level of subsurface utility information using SUE. This significantly higher return on investment when compared to Purdue and Toronto studies is thought to be a result of maturation of process and possibly a consideration of the qualitative savings noted above.

Not referenced in the Australian study, in 2010 a 12-month study conducted by researchers at the University of Toronto took an in-depth look at 9 large municipal and highway reconstruction projects that developed an enhanced depiction of buried utilities. Based on this analysis, a cost model was proposed that takes into account both tangible and intangible benefits. All projects showed a positive return-on-investment (ROI) that ranged from $2.05 to $6.59 for every dollar spent on improving underground utility location data.

Image courtesy of VTN Consulting.

Denmark's open data initiative estimated to save government over $45 million per year and generate returns of $87 million for the private sector

In 2007 I listened to an exceptional presentation at a Spatial Sciences Institute Biennial International Conference in Hobart, Tasmania given by Tim Barker and Neale Hooper, of the Queensland Treasury, part of the government of the State of Queensland.  The effort within the Queensland government was motivated by the finding of an internal review that within the government licensing is non standard, there are inter-jurisdictional problems, and in many cases it is easier to get geospatial data by buying it from the private sector than to work through the licensing issues to get it from another government agency.  What Tim Barker and Neale Hooper were recommending to the Government of Queensland that all government spatial data would be available under Creative Commons (CC) licenses.

In Denmark there is a similar problem.  Both governments and businesses spend large amounts every year on buying and administrating basic data.

The Finance Minister of Denmark has just announced that from January 1, 2013, individuals, public authorities and private businesses will have free access to retrieve and use what in Denmark is callled basic data.  Basic data is fundamental information that is used by government for day to day adminstration.  It included data about people, companies, addresses, land/properties and administrative geographic data, such as administrative and electoral boundaries.   (Personal data that is included in basic data is protected by the Act on Processing of Personal Data).

Basic data falls into nine databases called registers; business registers, the Danish cadastre, the Danish Building and Dwelling Register, Danish administrative and geographical boundaries, a Danish elevation model as well the Danish place name register.  Givernments use basic data for collecting land tax, paying social benefits, planning climate change adaptation, emergency services, and other day to day administration.

Reducing government administration costs

It is estimated that by making basic data open and freely accessible, government administration will be improved.  In particular the cost of buying data from other government organizations will be reduced.  It is estimated that this could save Danish governments DKK 260 million ($45 milllion) per year from 2020.

Contributing to the economy

It is also expected to benefit the private sector, by reducing red tape, reducing the cost of acquiring data from governments, improving publice services, and creating opportunities for wealth creation from new digital products and services.  By eliminating redundant information (often the same information has to be submitted by businesses to the public sector several times over) and making data freely available to businesses could save Danish businesses up to DKK 0.5 billion ($87 million).  It is expected that real estate, insurance, finance, and tele-communications and geospatial  companies in particular will directly from open basic data.

Who pays for capturing and maintaining basic data ?

Financing basic data acquisiton and maintenance will be reorganised so that governments contribute to basic data acquisition and maintenance through their ministries' appropriations, or block grants in the case of municiplities. 

The process of managing basic data is being centralized to make it more efficient,

• Basic data in all nine registers will be harmonised and converted to interoperable formats.
• More information will be added to the basic data registers to better support public administration processes.
• A common IT infrastructure will created.  Basic data will be distributed by a single entity, called the Data Distributor.

FGDC Offers $50K Grants for ROI of Geospatial Applications

The FGDC has created a new category in their Community Assistance Program (CAP) grants for Return on Investment on geospatial applications.  The criteria for this grant program specify using GITA’s ROI methodology.

FGDC will be awarding several $50,000 grants for developing a case study that uses GITA’s ROI approach.  The grant process is open to utilities, local government agencies, and others.  If you are interested in learning more about this CAP grant program for ROI projects, please consider participating in a webinar. 

Topic: Support for Return on Investment FGDC CAP Category 5 proposal submissions
Date: Dec 7, 2009
Time: 2:00pm ET

This is an opportunity for organizations to assess the value of their geospatial implementations using federal funds.

Infrastructure Management in Brazil

Managing network infrastructure (often called outside plant) in the telecom industry is challenging.  I'll explain why.  For many years I have used a rule of thumb to estimate the complexity of modeling network infrastructure for different industries.  For water and gas the network infrastructure is similar, pipes and valves, and you may have 30 or so different types of equipment which means roughly 30 classes of objects or 30 tables in your RDBMS schema.   Waste water is similar, but you have to worry about z, because gravity is important.  For electric power grids (secondary), things are more complicated, but still manageable.  You will find that you will need 100 to 150 classes.  But for telecoms, especially in this day and age when copper, fibre, coax, and wireless media are used, you will need hundreds of classes and it is very challenging to develop an application to manage network infrastructure of this complexity.

One of the first companies to attempt to develop software to manage telecom network infrastructure was Telebras, which had a division similar to Bell Labs in the US or Bell Northern Research in Canada. At Telebras Geovane Magalhaes was the technical architect and lead on that project, which resulted in a a system that was remarkable for its time, an integrated outside plant management and provisioning system called SAGRE, that stored spatial data in a relational database (Oracle).  At the time Telebras was the only telephone company in Brazil, and most of the operating divisions of Telebras adopted SAGRE for outside plant and provisioning.

Since then Telebras has been broken up and Telebras's IT division is now called CPqD and their outside plant application is called  CPqD Outside Plant Management (http://www.cpqdusa.com/solutions/outside.html).  CPqD OSPM has been upgraded to support the latest Autodesk and Oracle technology.

One of the operating divisions of Telebras was acquired by Telefonica and renamed Telefonica Telesp.  Telesp runs the telephone network for the State of Sao Paulo, which accounts for 60% of the Brazilian GDP.   Telesp has over 10 million customers and over 15 million access lines.  Every month they process hundreds of thousands of work orders generated by people who want a new phone, to get a new line, or need a repair.   

Several years ago they recognized they had some serious problems, the most important of which from a customer service and competitive point of view was that it took weeks for a customer to get a phone.  The basic problem was that the work flow for provisioning a phone was inefficient. 

Three years ago Telesp initiated a project that was recently completed to automate the entire process of provisioning.  Marcos Faria of Telesp was the technical lead for this project and the Telesp IT team accomplished this by a combination of a centralized data repository for all spatial and other data in Oracle, integration with SAP based around the Oracle RDBMS, CPqD's Outside Plant Management with integrated provisioning support, and resolving the as-built problem.  The result was that they were able to reduce the cost of provisioning by 40%, which is a huge reduction and an incredible achievement.  They also eliminated their backlog and were able to reduce their provisioning life cycle to days from weeks.  Not only were the results of the project impressive, they calculated that their ROI was 100% over the three year period of the project.

If you are interested in more information about this amazing achievement, Geovane Magalhaes prepared a presentation about Telefonica Telesp for GITA2005 in Denver.