UTILITY DATA MANAGEMENTJames H. Anspach, P.G.

Chairman – Board Committee on Civil Engineering Codes & StandardsChairman – ASCE Construction Institute’s Construction Standards CouncilChairman – CI/ASCE 38-02, “Standard Guideline for the Collection and

Depiction of Existing Subsurface Utility Data”AASHTO Committee on Utility Scoping and MappingPrincipal Investigator/Investigator: SHRP R01, R01A, R01B, R01C, R15, NCHRP 205

Utility Issues Getting More Attention

• 11 - 35 million miles of underground utilities exist in the U.S.

• Existing utilities are at varied depths, in varied soils, made of different materials, are varied sizes, have varied access

• More utilities are being installed daily, deeper and with less detectable materials

• No one entity in control; hodgepodge of laws, policies, attitudes (e.g. FAA & airports are both major utility owners but often do not share data; state DOTs say big problem is that municipalities do not share utility permit installation data)

Utility data is used by many stakeholders for many purposes

• Damage prevention

• Project Planning

• Project Design

• Maintenance

• Tax revenue

• System Design and Planning

• Terror

• Look at Competitors

• Alternative uses for abandoned lines (for example, fiber optics or captured carbon)

Utility data now reside in a variety of

“repositories”

• variety of formats

• highly variable reliability

Drawings, notes, narrative, reports, and institutional memory were the historical source of utility data.

• Resided on paper,

• In brain memory,

• lacked the ability to be well organized, sorted, queried, or compiled

These records took an unacceptable percentage of time and money away from customer functions, and so they were

rarely complete, updated, or comprehensive

(acquisitions and the associated record losses)

Locational references were tied to existing visible features like sides of roads or building edges or other utilities.

These visible features many times changed over time, and then these references were lost.

Accurate and precise location data are valuable, but the costs of acquiring and managing such data were historically out of reach

The advent of cost effective accurate GPS data collection systems and open architecture GIS storage and retrieval systems now

allow all the stakeholders to fundamentally change the disjointed ways that society collects and depicts utility data.

laser scanning, photosurvey, GPS Cameras, etc.

Data collection standards and pedigree information will be key success factors.

• Location Standards– ASCE 38-02 is one of the few standards pertaining to

utilities location that is of benefit to the engineering design community.

– Utility data gathered and depicted under 38-02 are sealed by a registered professional

– However, with better surface geophysics, survey grade GPS, and real-time QA/QC capabilities, it may now be possible to gather reliable data without the full-time involvement of a registered professional.

New and rigorous standards will be necessary in order to give sufficient assurance to project owners that

utility data are reliable if they are not collected under the direction of licensed professionals.

Who collected the data?What were their qualifications?What equipment did they use?How did they reference it?

One standard that is absolutely critical is that of producing “as-builts.”

• What is an as-built?

•generic term used by anyone, with or without training, with or without proper equipment, and with or without responsibility for errors or omissions•connotes reliability but is actually one of the most dangerous terms in the utility mapping lexicon.

Why didn’t we accurately document utilities as they went in the ground?

• We believed that the existing references (buildings, trees, road edges) would be in place forever.

• We did not contemplate keeping these same utilities in service for the many years that we have.

• We did not have technology that cost effectively allowed us to survey the utility locations to a more permanent datum.

• The technology that we did have was expensive and limited to the use of highly trained and paid professionals

• We did not contemplate the expensive and risky situations that digging into utilities would create.

• Higher pressures and voltages, more fragile materials, and environmentally unfriendly products were not anticipated at the time of installation.

• We could not imagine the cost of moving a utility as we needed more road space.

With survey grade GPS, technicians can prepare record drawings with seemingly the same accuracies and precisions

as a professional.

• It will be necessary to provide a pedigree of the data:– who did it,

– what the accuracies of the equipment were that they were using,

– where were survey points were taken along the utility string,

– how many satellites were used,

– other data yet to be defined in a standard.

Other Issues

• Urban canyons may negate the ability to receive sufficient signals, and how we handle this aspect of “as-builting” will have ramifications as to the total quality of the utility drawing.

• How do we address directionally drilled utilities where they are not visible during installation?

GIS Data Repositories

• Current GIS utility databases usually lack the attributes (or metadata in some cases) of utility collection and depiction methods, accuracies, and precisions.

• Standards on these items are necessary going forward in order to effectively manage this increasing amount of data.

Data Quality in Locating Interpretations

• Utility data now has the ability to go directly from a field “locating” device to a database, through GPS and coordinate texting mechanisms.

• If a technician is designating every utility in the area, then this development is less troubling than if the technician is trying to mark particular utilities.

• Just marking several utilities does not allow the technician to take into account the various electromagnetic field interferences, or the context of other utility systems in the area that may affect the accuracy of the received signal.

• Some surface geophysical methods such as GPR offer more promise of accuracy in this area than others.

• Standards should also be developed in this area of “automatic” mark placement.

• It only takes one un-documented or mis-recorded new utility installation in an area to degrade the total quality of the mapping effort that went before it.

• Generally when this happens, the entire area must once again be scanned for utilities to see what was changed.

• This continues to be a challenge even today due to the lack of standards, conflicting regulations, and disjointed responsibilities for utility data.

Data Responsibility

• No one federal, state, or local agency is yet responsible for assuring that utility data is correct

• In most cases, utility data is not even placed within a central repository so it can be accessed by those that need it

– Security and commercial concerns are touted by utility owners as a reason to keep data within their own organizations

– new security protocols on GIS access are certainly available and could solve this problem

Utility Data Management

• It is entirely possible that a private company or a public-private partnership rather than a government or utility –controlled one will collect, manage, and allow access to these data in the future.

Total utility data management can only happen when the following broad elements are in place.

• Need a viable database

• Need to prepare an existing baseline of our utilities’ locations within a defined area

• Any new utilities within that area need to be accurately as-built

• Changes to existing utilities, such as removal, abandonment, de-commissioning, changes in pressure, adjustments in location, new appurtenances, and so forth must also be made to the database– will require a clear geographic boundary of the changes, and some

level of QA/QC and management of the data

• Display of the data in a format useful for the user must also occur. Security and commercial interests must be protected in this step, but not to the detriment of public safety or costs.

Questions?