Between the Poles

ASCE standards reduce risk and expedite public highway construction projects

What the engineer does during planning and design has a multitude of impacts: traffic disruptions to the public, safety for workers on construction sites, avoiding delays and budget overruns on projects, decreasing risk to contractors, and reducing cost to the rate paying public. It really is a matter of public welfare and that's why the ASCE 38 and 75 standards are engineering standards. What we'd like to do is enter into a world where we we have as reliable information about the subsurface as we do about the above ground and the location of underground infrastructure is well understood in the design stages.  Then we can start applying modern 3D BIM design technologies, virtual design, and new other technologies to enable the construction process to proceed as rapidly as possible with the least amount of risk and rework. And that's going to save everyone money and a lot of headaches.

Regulating the public ROW

With respect to underground utilities the key idea is to avoid, accommodate and then relocate. This will require changing the mindset of agencies such as DOTs that should be regulating work in the public right of way. Currently many DOTs allow the utility operators free rein to build and operate in the ROW. They take a hands off approach saying it is not their responsibility, it's the utilities operators/owners problem. At this point it is generally recognized that this approach no longer works because everybody is accountable when things go wrong and a gas main gets broken and a building explodes. If we can accurately locate, map and accommodate underground infrastructure during planning and design, just as we do using above ground surveys, we expedite the project by taking the risk arising from underground utilities out of the critical path. By speeding up these jobs you can really save a lot of money on major construction projects.

ASCE 38-22 for SUE Surveys

In contrast to the 38-02, the latest version of the 38-22 standard for SUE investigations is both prescriptive and a performance standard. It is prescriptive in that it specifies the minimum actions that must be undertaken to achieve (or attempt to achieve) a particular quality level. As a performance standard it describes the professional judgment that needs to be exercised to determine the appropriate timing, sequencing, location and scope of a utility investigative effort to achieve the goal of reducing utility issues during planning and design by achieving Quality Level B or A for all underground utilities. ASCE 38-22, unlike 38-02, specifies levels of positional accuracy. 

We wanted to provide better definitions so that there's greater clarity in what constitutes a SUE survey.  The SUE survey must be stamped by a professional engineer and In addition be accompanied by an engineering report that goes with the submittals to help lay out what has been found, where issues and discrepancies were encountered, and the things you need to be especially careful about. It includes our recommendations going forward on the project, what you need to consider and  where you may need to do more advanced geophysical investigations or vacuum excavations to better define the design, where you need coordinate closely with utility owners, how to prepare construction documents and plan construction. The liabilities behind this document is significant. To protect the owner, the contractor, and the engineer whoever has provided the SUE data and service must be able to document what they did sufficiently to be able to stand up in a court of law and say, "We met the standard of care."

ASCE 75-22 As-installed

We define the spatial and the attribution properties of the facilities that we want to record, so that at the end of the day, we can actually create a digital twin in a user friendly format and consistent format. We have defined minimum, optional and conditional attributes and the minimum requirements, list the information we must have to create a digital twin or very useful 3D model of our infrastructure in a standardized manner.

In Montana we have a permitting system for work in the public ROW and we can collect these attributes and an approximate alignment at the time of applying for the permit. The person filling out the permit application understands the required attributes and can plug them right in. And then when the actual work is performed, the approximate alignment's upgraded to the actual observation via the survey data. ASCE 75 has been implemented in Montana for several years now and has won both Montana and national engineering awards.

We also support absolute spatial positioning and have have a framework for data exchange by having a standard datum. At the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), this is the same thing we do for nautical charts and hazards to navigation. We're just applying it to hazards to excavation. Everything is referenced to the National Spatial Referencing System. That gets rid of all the distortion that happens when you're trying to take something on a sphere and flatten it on a flat plane. You get distortions, there's different projections, state plane, county coordinates, UTM and they all distort the image. By having everything referenced to the National Spatial Referencing System, when you bring it together, it's going to go in the same spot every time. And it accounts even for plate tectonics and crustal drift ln places like California, Whenever you're turned on your GNSS system, you're tied into the National Spatial Reference System. It is being upgraded and the next version should come out in another year.

ASCE 75 specifies levels of positional accuracy. There's an accuracy table that goes with the standard, which we basically piggybacked off CSA S-250, the Canadian standard. We have CSA S-250 people on  our 75 standards committee. They also told us three things that they wish they had included with CSA S-250; make it a digital standard, secondly make it 3D and thirdly include above ground infrastructure with the standard. So we made sure we brought those into ASCE 75-22.

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has adopted both ASCE 38 and 75 as important input to their Model for Underground Data Definition Initiative (MUDDI ). The MUDDI model provides a base conceptual data model for interoperability and data exchange.  It is being adopted world wide including by the NUAR initiative in the UK, the UNUM project in New ,and other jurisdictions.

Securing sensitive information

Data stewardship includes issues of sensitive and secure information.  Here in the U.S, we're using 49 CFR Part 1520, which talks about how to manage sensitive secure information that TSA has determined to be Sensitive Security Information, as defined in § 1520.5. (This part does not apply to the maintenance, safeguarding, or disclosure of classified national security information.) It's a big issue with many utility owners. They don't want that information available to everyone. The 49 CFR Part 1520 guidance defines what information needs to be kept secure and that has helped alleviate the data protection concerns of the utility owners.

Conclusion

With the imminent availability of the ASCE 38-22 and 75-22 standards, every underground utility segment that's depicted can be assigned Quality Levels based on ASCE 38-22 for existing infrastructure or from the ASCE 75-22 "As-installed" standard for newly installed infrastructure. For example, in Colorado both draft standards are mandated for all work in the public ROW. This enables a world where we we have as reliable information about the subsurface as we do about the above ground and the location of underground infrastructure is well understood in the design stages. Then we can start applying modern design technologies to produce better designs which enable the construction process to proceed as rapidly as possible with the least amount of risk and rework.

This post is based on Phil Meis' (UMS and ASCE) talk at the Subsurface Utility Mapping Strategy Forum (SUMSF).

SUE proposed as foundation for best practices for utility coordination on P3 projects

Public infrastructure projects frequently experience delays and cost overruns - often due to underground utilities - but delays and cost overruns are rare on P3 projects. Furthermore because P3 projects include not only the design/build part of the project but also the operate and/or maintain phase, P3s deliver better designed facilities that can be efficiently operated and maintained during the contract term, which can extend from 15 to 30 or more years. To help public-private partnership (P3) project stakeholders develop an efficient and consistent process for coordinating utilities, the Transportation Association of Canada (TAC) has developed a best practices guide specifically targeted on P3 projects. Essential to reducing the risk associated with underground utilities is knowing their accurate, up to date location.  The TAC guide makes subsurface utility engineering (SUE) the foundation for coordinating utilities on P3 public infrastructure projects.

Background

Public infrastructure projects frequently experience delays and cost overruns often due to underground utilities. The reason is that on a typical public construction project the government is responsible for project risks that add time and money to an infrastructure project.

Canada has developed a reputation for successfully delivering infrastructure projects using a public-private partnership (P3) approach. P3s are used to deliver an infrastructure project such as building and expanding roads, bridges, transit systems, and other public infrastructure.

On a P3 project the public sector always owns the infrastructure. The government determines when and where to build the project, its scope, and its budget. A competitive process is used by the government to select a private partner. The private partner designs, builds, finances, maintains and/or operates the public infrastructure. Delays and cost overruns are rare on P3 projects, as this approach allocates risks and responsibilities to the public and private sectors based on their areas of expertise. For example, the public sector bears the risk for changes in laws and regulations and the private partner bears the cost of construction delays. Because P3 projects include not only the design/build part of the project but also the operate and/or maintain phase, P3s deliver better designed facilities that can be efficiently operated and/or maintained during the contract term, which can extend from 15 to 30 or more years.

SUE proposed as foundation for coordinating utilities on P3 projects

There is a trend in legislation and regulation which on one hand may provide strong measures for compelling utilities and other infrastructure owners to improve locating, utility treatments and relocations, on the other provide encouragement for a collaborative approach among utility owners and government agencies which replaces the traditional regulatory mechanisms involving fines and other penalties for noncompliance. On P3 projects in particular the key to successful utility coordination is a team approach, with each member having a role in completing their portion of the project. The players on the team are the project owner, typically a government agency that funds the project; the ROW owner, the government agency responsible for maintaining the public ROW; the Utility Coordinator (UC), responsible for utility coordination on all phases of the project; the designer, who designs the P3 project at different stages ranging from conceptual design through detailed design; and utility agencies, the owners of public or private utility infrastructure who are often also the Project Owner. One of the key challenges for utility agencies is providing accurate records of their existing infrastructure to the Project Owner.

SUE and as-built standards

The foundation for the best practices proposed by TAC for utility coordination is subsurface utility engineering (SUE).  Standard practice for SUE investigations is based on American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) 38, first released as ASCE 38-02 but soon to be replaced by ASCE 38-21. The ASCE 38 standard establishes quality levels for underground utility information that all parties can use to evaluate the accuracy and reliability of underground utility location data.

The standards for "as-builts" for newly installed and relocated infrastructure are ASCE 75 in the U.S. and CSA S-250 in Canada.  For example, in Colorado both ASCE 38 and 75 are mandated, which means that every underground and above ground utility segment that's depicted could have either a utility quality level based on ASCE 38 for existing infrastructure or a utility accuracy level from the ASCE 75  "as-constructed" standard for newly installed or relocated utility infrastructure.  In Canada it's a little different. Every utility segment could have either a utility quality level based on ASCE 38 for existing infrastructure or a utility accuracy level from the CSA S-250 standard for newly installed or relocated infrastructure.

Application of SUE over project lifecycle

The TAC guidelines breaks the construction process down into phases: Planning, RFP Document Preparation, In-Market Design, Project Implementation and Post-Construction and identifies the roles and responsibilities of each team member during each phase with respect to utility coordination. The TAC guide describes how SUE practice is allocated over the different phases of the project.

During the Planning Phase the Project Owner is responsible for putting together a base plan of the general construction project area that is adequate for the requirements of utility coordination. The base plan is  forwarded to all impacted Utility Agencies (public and private), with a request for each utility to provide maps of their utility infrastructure based on the Utility Agency’s current records in the proposed project area. This information represents some of the QL-D (from utility records) and QL-C (from site visits) information for the project and is typically of limited quality. It is often  inaccurate, out of date or simply missing, which is frequently he case for abandoned infrastructure. At this stage it is critical that the utility agencies flag high risk utilities such as high pressure transmission lines.  Preliminary SUE investigations, providing QL-B (using remote detection technology) and/or QL-A (potholing), may be completed to validate and improve the quality of the utility information. Based on all of this information the Utility Coordinator creates a preliminary Utility Conflict Matrix that lists potential utility conflicts and relevant information about the utilities identified.  At the completion of the Planning Phase the approximate location of existing utilities and potential future utility infrastructure and possible relocations of high risk infrastructure should be known.

The Request for Proposal (RFP) Documentation Preparation Phase involves preparing the final RFP documents that will be made available to potential bidders. Included in the activities at this stage is the development of a Reference Concept Design (RCD) which may require that additional preliminary SUE investigations be performed to a quality level required for the Project’s In-Market Design Phase. The RCD is used by the Project Owner and Utility Agencies to conduct utility conflict assessments.  If a utility is identified to be in conflict with project works, further SUE QL-A investigations may be required to verify whether it indeed represent a conflict. The RCD design augmented by SUE information plays a significant role in the development of a RCD Utility Conflict Matrix which is a key component of the RFP becausee it provides crucial information about potential utility conflicts to the bidders.

The In-Market Design Phase (or Bid Phase) includes all activities required to deliver a preliminary design which forms the basis for preparing bid estimates.  Starting with the RCD Utility Conflict Matrix, each bidder prepares their own Utility Conflict Matrix based on their RFP submission design.  Knowing the location of existing utility infrastructure is crucial for the bidder to estimate scope of work. To help identify the location of existing utilities – both buried and overhead – the bidders use the information available as background documents provided with the RFP including utility records for private and public utilities, the RCD Utility Matrix, SUE reports provided by the Project Owner, RCD designs, preliminary utility relocation designs from Utility Agencies, and visual inspection and survey information. Since SUE often extends over more than one phase, it is essential to commence SUE investigations early in the Planning Phase to ensure the information is available to the proponents prior to and not beyond the initial In-market Design.  Each bidder is responsible for identifying the location of all existing utilities within the limits of construction, for coordinating any required utility relocations, and all the utility relocation and/or protection work necessary to accommodate utility coordination for the P3 project. During this phase estimating activities may require additional preliminary SUE investigations.  The In-Market Design Phase ends with technical and financial submissions from bidders to the Project Owner. Each submission is evaluated based on a technical and financial assessment and the Project Owner awards the P3 Contract to the successful private partner.

The Project Implementation Phase includes all activities associated with delivering the project from contract award through to completion of construction.

The initial objective of the private partner is to complete the preliminary design to a 30% level. To achieve this requires conducting an additional SUE investigation with the objective of achieving QL-B and QL-A for all underground infrastructure within the project limits.  This is required to ensure that all the required information has been collected to complete the Detailed Design.  This SUE investigation builds on the preliminary SUE information captured during the Planning and In-Market Design Phases.  Based on the complete SUE data the private partner creates a Utility Conflict Matrix that can be maintained and updated regularly to ensure that the latest conflict data is always available to project stakeholders. 

It is also extremely important for each Utility Agency to have access to the latest detailed design and SUE data to enable them complete their relocation designs early in the process. The initial objective of design is to complete the Detailed Design to a level that is sufficient for the utility companies to initiate their respective detailed designs for their relocation work.

After design and during construction, conflicts with unknown utilities may be encountered. It is essential that they be reported immediately to the Utility Coordinator who will initiate a field conflict resolution process. The private partner and the Utility Agencies need to notify the Utility Coordinator at the first indication of a delay to their relocation schedule due to the unknown conflict. The Utility Coordinator is responsible for assessing the impact of the delay on the overall Utility Relocation Coordination Plan and the private partner will follow up to determine the impact on the overall project schedule.

Once relocation construction is completed it is important to ensure that the records submitted for all relocated underground infrastructure are accurate. Utility Agencies are required to prepare “As-Built” drawings to be submitted to the private partner that are compliant with CSA S-250 quality requirements.

Operation and maintenance (O&M) typically represents 80% of the lifetime of an infrastructure facility. In the Post-Construction Phase under a Design, Build, Finance and Operate or Maintain (DBFO or DBFM) P3 model, the private partner is responsible for the operation and/or maintenance of the newly constructed infrastructure for 10 years or more. The O&M responsibility includes all activities necessary to operate or maintain transit facilities, toll roads and other infrastructure.  For civil infrastructure this includes supporting One Call notifications.  An advantage of DBFO and DBFM P3 projects is that it is in the financial interest of the private partner to control O&M costs by optimizing O&M activities.  This includes ensuring that accurate, up to date and complete location data for underground utilities and other infrastructure within the project limits is collected and maintained throughout the project life-cycle.

Application of SUE and as-built standards

During the Planning and In-Market Design (Bid) phases preliminary SUE investigations are conducted to collect and compile underground location data, typically to QL-D and QL-C quality levels. Building on these preliminary SUE investigations, the best practices for P3 projects proposed by the TAC requires the completion of a comprehensive SUE survey that achieves QL-B or QL-A quality levels for all underground infrastructure within the project limits. The TAC guidelines also require that as-builts submitted for all relocated infrastructure be compliant with CSA S-250, which is the Canadian as-built standard, corresponding to ASCE 75, the as-constructed standard in the US.

Conclusion

The guidelines for best practices for utility coordination on P3 projects provided by the Transportation Association of Canada (TAC) makes subsurface utility engineering (SUE) the foundation for reducing the risk associated with underground utilities. The objective of SUE investigations is identifying and determining the accurate, up to date location of underground utilities including abandoned infrastructure. The TAC guidelines also require capturing and maintaining accurate location data for relocated utilities.  Accurate and up to date location data for all underground utilities is critical for controlling costs during the O&M phase, which typically represents 80% of the lifetime of an infrastructure facility.

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

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

Mitigating underground utility risk through collaboration

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

Legislative foundation for new approach to utility coordination

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

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

Single source of project truth key to effective collaboration

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

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

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

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

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

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

Expanding improved utility coordination to other public projects

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

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

Vision for the future

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New legislation revising Colorado's one call statute

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

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

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

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

Integrating SUE into the construction lifecyle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Real time ground deformation monitoring from satellites to reduce risk of damage to utilities and pipelines

Several years ago I blogged previously about an application that used Sentinel-1 radar interferometry to monitor ground displacements with millimetre precision to look for subsidence which might be evidence of a leak in a municipal water system. Now access to data and processing algorithms are available to developers to create workflows to monitor ground deformation to reduce the risk of damage to underground Infrastructure including utilities, oil, gas and water transmission pipelines and associated industrial plants.

Ground movement represents a significant risk to linear structures such as utility, pipeline, and transportation networks as well as to large scale industrial and commercial structures.  Traditionally ground deformation is monitored by fixed high accuracy GNSS stations located at intervals and by periodic surveys along alignments.  Both of these are expensive and are limited by geospatial and temporal gaps. Satellites such as Sentinel-1 that use radar to image the earth are capable of radar interferometry (INSAR) which allows ground deformations on the order of cm and even mm to be detected.  The revisit times for these satellites are on the order of days and the radar antennas on these satellites allow very large areas to be monitored for deformations.  For example, Sentinel-1 is capable of detecting deformations of a few mm over an area of 42,500 km² with a 12 day revisit time. Furthermore INSAR data is available stretching back to the mid 1990's making it possible to monitor historical ground movement over quite long time periods.

UP42 provides the infrastructure of an enterprise software development and deployment platform enabling developers to create scale-able workflows using satellite imagery and customized algorithms. In a recent UP42 webinar (53 minutes in), Shawn Melamed and Sarah Thompson of CATALYST (PCI Geomatics) showed how innovative INSAR technology has made it possible to cost effectively continuously monitor ground deformation along thousands of km of  a linear structure such as a utility, pipeline, or transportation network.  The data can be sourced from any of the satellites capable of INSAR including Sentinel-1 (free) and TerraSAR-X (commercial).  An example is provided in the talk of the development of a UP42 workflow for detecting uneven land subsidence in California resulting from agricultural withdrawals of water from an aquifer that potentially could damage a power plant located in the area.  The code to perform this analysis is available as the Ground Displacement Block on the UP42 marketplace.

 

 

Ontario moves to reduce risk of delays due to underground utilities for public construction projects

Utility locates and relocation work have historically been the cause of construction delays on public construction projects, particularly in urban areas with dense population and the commensurate underground utility and telecom infrastructure.  In recent bills the Ontario Legislature has addressed this problem of underground utility locates and relocations by escalated enforcement options when the work is not completed accurately and in a timely manner.

Forcing faster utility relocations in Greater Toronto transit projects

In July 2020, Bill 171 Building Transit Faster Act went into force.  The objective of the bill was to remove impediments that historically have slowed down transit projects by designating a transit corridor within which special regulations apply.  For example, once lands have been included in a transit corridor, if a property owner plans to carry out construction activities on these lands, they need to apply to obtain a permit before the work can begin. Bill 171 specifically identified four provincial transit projects in the Greater Toronto Area to which the new regulations apply; the Ontario Line, the Scarborough Subway Extension, the Yonge Subway Extension and the Eglinton Crosstown West Extension.

Among the new regulations were measures allowing transit builders to relocate utilities more quickly in preparation for projects. Specifically the bill provided a mechanism by which utility companies may be required to move utility infrastructure for the transit. It also provided for escalated enforcement. The bill enabled the Ministry of Transportation to delegate some of its powers to Metrolinx, the Greater Toronto and Hamilton transit authority, including enforcement tools such as stop-work orders, inspections, and administrative penalties.

Forcing more timely utility relocations on provincial transit and highway projects

Five months later in December 2020, Bill 222 Ontario Rebuilding and Recovery Act, went into force.  It extended the special regulations applicable to designated transit corridors in the GTA to other provincial “priority transit projects”.  It also provided measures to enforce compliance on highway projects by amending the Public Service Works on Highways Act to allow a judge of the Ontario Superior Court to order a utility company to comply with an order to relocate utility infrastructure.  In the case of noncompliance with the court order the judge was empowered to authorize a road authority such as the Ministry of Transportation to carry out the utility relocation work itself.

Metrolinx/Infrastructure Ontario approach to underground utilities

Underground utilities represent one of the top transit project delivery risks identified by Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario (IO).  Mitigating utility risk for transit projects is a continuous process involving many stakeholders.  They key elements in Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario (IO) approach to utility risk mitigation are early collaboration,subsurface utility engineering (SUE) surveys prior to engineering design, options to avoid, protect or relocate utilities, and making underground utility location data available to engineering firms and contractor bid teams.

Involving utility companies in the project as early as possible is crucial. Building collaborative relationship among project stakeholders and utility companies has been found in a number of jurisdictions to be key to avoiding major utility problems during construction. To enable the open sharing of information confidentiality agreements between Metrolinx/IO and utility companies are essential.

On all transit projects Metrolinx/IO conducts subsurface utility engineering (SUE) surveys in accordance with ASCE 38-02 along the entire transit alignment. The level of SUE required is typically a minimum QLC/QLB with QLA at locations of interest including stations and transmission utilities. Combining the results of the SUE survey with proposed alignments results in a conflict matrix identifying the locations of utility conflicts.

For each conflict, several options are available; the project scope can be adjusted to avoid the conflict, the conflicting utility can be left in place and protected if necessary, or the utility can be relocated. With this approach based on a SUE survey, the risk of unexpected utility problems occurring during construction can be reduced and unnecessary and expensive utility relocations avoided.

Enabling bid teams to have access to the available data on the location of underground utilities can improve the quality of bids and reduce risk and uncertainty that can inflate estimates.  Metrolinx/IO makes the available utility location information to all the bid teams.  In addition topic meetings allow for direct interaction between bid teams and utility companies with Metrolinx/IO present.

One of the major issues recognized by Metrolinx/IO is incomplete, inaccurate and out of data records of the location of underground utilities. To address this issue, Metrolinx/IO reports that asset management systems are being developed that will improve data tracking including the location of underground utilities.

Forcing timely underground utility locates for provincial broadband projects

Ontario one call legislation gives infrastructure owners five days to produce locate information, but the deadline is often ignored. Late locates can lead to long delays and extra costs for contractors, excavators, locators, utility owners and other stakeholders.The recently passed Bill 257 Building Broadband Faster Act, 2021 which is intended to expedite the delivery of broadband to under served areas of Ontario, revises the 2012 Ontario One Call Act by requiring network owners to accurately locate their equipment within 10 business days after notification by Ontario One Call or face penalties and other actions that are available to the Minister of Infrastructure. It enables the broadband project owner to claim financial compensation if the utility or telecom either failed to accurately mark the ground and provide a written document showing the location of its underground infrastructure or incorrectly stated that none of its underground infrastructure would be affected by the excavation.  The act enables the Ministry to authorize excavation or digging to proceed when locates are not performed within 10 days.

Conclusion

With these bills, the measures relating to locating and relocating underground utilities initially applied to GTA transit projects have been extended to province-wide transit, highway and broadband projects. Together they cover most of the infrastructure in the provincial  public right of way.

A revolutionary source of underground utility location data for SUE surveys

Return on investment (ROI) studies of subsurface engineering utility engineering (SUE) surveys applied to highway construction projects conducted since the late 1990s have consistently revealed a large return-on-investment from conducting SUE surveys as part of highway construction projects.  Studies have found that the major benefits of SUE surveys are improved construction efficiency, greater probability of on-time and on-budget project completions, fewer and shorter utility service outages and less traffic disruption and delays for the motoring public. Recently jurisdictions such as Colorado have mandated SUE surveys on all public civil engineering projects.

The objective of a SUE survey is to identify and locate all underground infrastructure in the area of the proposed project to ASCE 38-02 Quality Level B or better. Currently SUE surveys rely on on-site detection technologies such as electromagnetic (EM), ground penetrating radar (GPR), and other methods to remotely detect underground utilities.  Potholing is also routinely conducted as part of a SUE survey to confirm the identification and location of utilities that have been detected by remote sensing technologies.

Using remote detection methods and potholing requires "boots on the pavement" which raises safety as a major concern when conducting a SUE survey.  EM devices are typically handheld wands and GPR is usually mounted on pushcarts. Data acquisition occurs at a walking pace.  Furthermore the reliable interpretation of GPR scans requires an experienced geotechnical practitioner. Together these factors make SUE surveys slow, laborious processes with serious safety issues.

I have recently come across a technology innovation developed by 4M-Analytics that could provide SUE practitioners with a source of data without the major disadvantages of traditional remote detection methods; it is safer because it does not require boots on the pavement, can reliably provide accurate locations, can be conducted without disrupting traffic, and can be generated much more rapidly than the traditional on-site remote detection methods. Intended for linear civil engineering projects such as pipelines and transportation routes 4M-Analytics' technology utilizes high-resolution satellite and aerial imagery, computer vision algorithms, and training sets for machine learning developed for different biomes, including forests, grasslands, and deserts. The deliverable to the SUE practitioner is a complete, accurate and up-to-date utility conflict map showing the location of all underground utilities and pipelines intersecting a proposed civil engineering project.

SUE is rapidly growing in importance for civil engineering projects. This revolutionary approach to locating underground infrastructure, which utilizes the huge volume of aerial and satellite earth observation imagery that has been built up over the past decades together with machine learning, could provide an important source of rapidly produced, safely acquired, and reliable underground location data for SUE practitioners.

Estonia developing a national digital twin to increase construction productivity

Estonia is well known as one of the most digital countries in Europe.  At the GEOBIM 2020 conference this morning Christopher-Robin Raitviir, of the Estonian Department of Digital Construction in the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, described how Estonia is adopting a BIM-based building permit process which is contributing to the development of a  national 3D digital twin.  The business objective behind these initiatives is to improve construction productivity by a factor of three.

The objective of the digital permitting process is to speed up permitting and raise the level of compliance enforced by the process. The digital permitting application accepts BIM models in IFC format and then applies rule-based and algorithm-based checks to ensure compliance with national standards.  For example, a standard for door size can be checked automatically and any doors that are not compliant are highlighted in red and identified and visualized in the 3D model making it easy to identify and correct problematic doors.  After permitting approval building designs are deposited in the National Building Registry.  This is interesting because it addresses a widespread problem; what to do with designs after the permit has been issued.  The designs have been submitted as part of a building permit application and have been publicly available for a period of time.  They contain important information that can be very useful for emergency responders and for other purposes.  The designs are often left to molder away in the basements of municipal governments because of uncertainty about ownership - even though the designs have been publicly available during the permitting process, access after permitting is often restricted because the information is considered to be proprietary.  Currently the models in the National Building Registry are designs, but the ultimate goal is for it to contain accurate as-builts.

The Estonian National Digital Twin was initiated in 2018 and includes buildings, roads and other transportation infrastructure such as rail and airports, and, remarkably, underground utility networks.  This data is publicly available and buildings, transportation links and utility networks can be selected for download in CityGML and other formats.

This is a remarkable initiative on a national scale and is similar in many ways to Singapore which has had a sustained effort to improve the speed and comprehensiveness of the permitting process by requiring digital BIM models.

Scotland's system for sharing location information about underground infrastructure to be mandatory

Scotland is one of the leading jurisdictions in developing 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 in 2012 and will soon become mandatory. There is a dial before you dig system in Scotland, but it is being used less and less as network operators and roads authorities are switching to the Vault system.

Background

Underground utilities and other infrastructure are a major cause of highway construction schedule and budget overruns. In addition to construction delays, damage to underground utilities during construction makes every construction project a potential disaster site with risk for workers and the public. Every year, in excess of four million holes are dug in UK roads to repair assets, provide connecting services to new premises and to lay new cables and pipes. Failure to identify accurately the location of existing buried assets results in numerous practical problems, costs and dangers for utility owners, contractors and road users.  Location and attribute data on underground services can be very poor, in some cases especially for older assets even non existent. Improving mechanisms of integrating and sharing knowledge on utility assets and the location of street works are expected to lead to a reduction in the amount of street works in the UK by improving both the co-ordination of works and the quality of the information shared.

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Kat Quane, Road Works Policy Manager at Transport Scotland about Scottish initiatives to reduce underground utility damage.

Scottish Road Works Register

The Scottish Road Works Register (SRWR) is a system used by all roads authorities and excavators in Scotland to coordinate construction projects. For over 30 years, it has enabled them to share details of planned and ongoing construction projects including the location of underground infrastructure. Historically underground utility information has been shared by providing maps by email, websites, or distributed on CDs.

The Scottish Road Works Commissioner is an independent public official responsible to the Scottish Parliament. The Commissioner's aim is to improve the planning, co-ordination and quality of road works throughout Scotland.

Development of the Vault system

The Scottish Community Apparatus Data Vault (Vault) is intended to make underground asset information accessible to road authorities and network operators. organizations that have a statutory right to dig up in the public right of way. The participants in Vault are restricted to organizations that participate in the Scottish Road Works Register (SRWR) and have a statutory right to dig in the public right of way. In Scotland there are about 150 utilities, half of which have a statutory right to dig. The aim of the service is to allow timely access to information about all underground assets from a single centralized location to ensure the safety of workers in excavation as well as the public. Vault is funded as part of the overall SRWR funding.

The U.K. Mapping the Underworld (MTU) project, initiated in 2004 and largely funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and involving the University of Birmingham, University of Bath, British Geological Society, University of Leeds, Newcastle University, University of Sheffield, University of Southampton, and UK Water Industry Research (UKWIR), sought to address the serious social, environmental and economic consequences arising from an inability to locate buried utility service infrastructure without resorting to potholing. As part of MTU initiative the University of Leeds developed the Vault system as part of the VISTA (Visualizing Integrated Information on Buried Assets to Reduce Street Works) project. The Vault system was adopted in Scotland in 2012.

The systems provider of the Scottish Road Works Register and Vault is a private company Symology. Data is provided by network operators and roads authorities via an extract, transform, load (ETL) process.  One of the objectives of Vault is to be able to integrate data in a variety of format from different GISs. The data in Vault not only shows the location of underground infrastructure but also the type of equipment such as gas, telecoms, electricity, water and others along with contact details for the owners of the facilities.

At a minimum utilities are expected to refresh their data four times a year. In Scotland there is no national statutory limit on as-built and update backlogs. For volatile data sources data is refreshed every 2 months. However, U.K. regulators may regulate this. For example, Ofgem requires as-built and update backlogs to not exceed 42 calendar days (30 business days).

Data protection

Scotland has a history of working collaboratively. This tradition has enabled utilities and telecoms to share details of planned works in the national register up to three months ahead of deployment. Non disclosure agreements have not been required in works planning – since everyone is subject to the same rules, and everyone can see everyone else’s data, no one is commercially disadvantaged. Road Works data recorded on the Scottish Road Works Register (SRWR) is available as open data. The SRWC is subject to public body rules on cyber security and all participants must meet the highest levels of data security.

The information accessible through Vault is only available to users of the Scottish Road Works Register.  The Scottish Road Works Commissioner has restricted access to the register to the roads authorities and excavators working in Scotland. Data is not shared with any third parties without the express prior permission of those that supplied the data. Access to the Vault system to contractors requires vetting by one of the members, either a network operator or roads authority. Access to the system is restricted by email and password. The system can be accessed from a notebook or a handheld in the field.

Incident reporting

Reporting underground utility damage is not part of the Vault mandate. Near misses, injuries and fatalities are reported to Health and Safety of the U.K. Government. For the last 30 years underground utility damage is reported to the “Road Works Register”. While reporting is not mandatory, since 2005 this register has been designated a legal document, and represents a permanent record that can be used in civil litigation to determine liability in the case of damage. Not all incidents of damage are reported, but it is likely that the more serious instances are. An annual report is published by the Scottish Road works Commissioner based on the data in this register, but number of incidents of underground utility damage is not reported, nor is the estimated costs of damage estimated. However the data is available and the number of incidents can be determined. Kat estimates that the number of incidents is in “hundreds”.

Data quality

There is currently no requirement relating to data quality on the data submitted to Vault by network operators and local government. However, the data submitted by utility operators and roads authorities in Scotland data is generally compliant with the U.K. data quality standard for locating underground utilities PAS 128 (2014). Furthermore, many utility operators including Scottish Water, Scottish Gas, and Scottish Power are making a concerted effort to improve the quality of the data that is submitted to Vault and Kat reports that data quality is improving. An important benefit of a system like Vault that enables all underground utility data to be seen in a single view and compared with what is exposed during excavation is that it makes inaccurate data very apparent. There is greater awareness of the value of reliable data for reducing the risk of damage during construction, planning and design, preventative maintenance and reducing liability costs.

Vault will soon be mandatory

In 2012 the Vault system was deployed in Scotland on a voluntary basis.  Last year a bill to make participation mandatory in Vault was passed by the Scottish Parliament and has received royal assent.  The COVID-19 pandemic has delayed implementation of the new legislation, but it is expected to begin as soon as the economy reopens.

This is a ground-breaking national initiative involving legislation, regulation, new technology and especially collaboration between stakeholders to address one of the chief causes of highway construction delays, cost overruns and injuries to workers and the public.  The Scottish Vault system addresses the challenge of sharing the location of underground infrastructure among stakeholders involved in civil construction projects and is an important step toward reducing the risk of underground utility damage.