Technologies to Support the Storage, Retrieval, and Use of 3-D Utility Location Data (2015)

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

5C h a p t e r 1 project Background Quoting from the SHRP 2 R01 project posting: It is commonly held among transportation officials that the accurate location and characterization of utilities (both above and below ground) and other similar facilities, especially deeply- buried ones, and their timely protection or relocation is a major factor in preventing delays in highway renewal projects. Such delays can extend the period of project development and impede construction delivery as documented in the final report for SHRP 2 Project R01, “Encouraging Innovation in Locating and Characterizing Underground Utilities.” Inaccu- rate location of utilities contributes to traffic and community disruption when service lines are encountered unexpectedly or access by utility repair crews is blocked by construction activities. Inadvertent damage to underground utilities can lead to environmental damage or even put the health and safety of construction workers and the public at risk. Because utilities often are co-located on highway rights-of- way, renewal projects are vulnerable to utility-related delay and disruption. It is important to develop accurate plans that fully consider utilities and, by knowing this information early in the project development process, develop effective and cost- efficient strategies to protect or relocate the utility or provide alternative service to utility customers if service must be interrupted temporarily. Currently, many underground utili- ties are difficult to locate and characterize and often impede progress of transportation projects. Utilities can become “lost” as construction alters the landscape and preexisting bench- marks are removed. In the worst cases, no information exists until the utility is encountered during construction. These situations often result in significant delays to construction because work is suspended while utilities are relocated or the facility is redesigned. Unplanned service interruptions have even wider impact on communities served by the utility. The importance of this topic has led to an increased focus by project and utility owners in recent years as the current capa- bilities are taxed by renewal projects of increasing complexity. (TRB 2009) research Objective The objective of SHRP 2 Renewal Project R01A was to develop a framework and to execute a pilot project to support and encourage the adoption of technologies to collect, use, update, and store 3-D utility information on highway right-of-way construction projects. Specifically, this included the methods and procedures, as well as the system, to create a 3-D model documenting as-built utilities and their locations. Collec- tively, the strategy, framework, methods, procedures and sys- tem will be referred to as the “solution.” The processes and procedures used to maintain the 3-D utility information were to be flexible enough to support proj- ects, with as-built documents available to state departments of transportation (DOT) to establish the utility record. In addi- tion, the process and system had to accept the as-built records, whatever form they might be in, and create processes and a storage environment for the perpetual storage and mainte- nance of the 3-D utility model under the DOT right-of-way. The work to be performed was expected to provide data management recommendations, identify new technology to improve the capture of aboveground and underground utili- ties, and recommend a system architecture for 3-D utility location data in highway renewal. The system, when imple- mented, was expected to reduce the costs and delays common to DOT construction projects that result from an incomplete understanding of the utility infrastructure and to store the utility data in 3-D for all future DOT renewal projects. Scope of Study Quoting again from the SHRP 2 R01 project posting (TRB 2009), the original scope of the study was as follows: The project is intended to develop alternative strategies for acquiring 3-D utility location data and implement a pilot proj- ect within a defined geographic area including a number of participating utilities. The project will provide a demonstration Background

6of the access control, data security, data pedigree (based on the Standard Guideline for the Collection and Depiction of Existing Subsurface Utility Data, CI/ASCE 38-02), positioning uncer- tainty, available characterization data, and liability issues that would be faced in a full-scale implementation of the system. Ongoing database management issues, data ownership, and data sharing shall be discussed. Providing documented exam- ples of solutions to these administrative and legal issues is an important part of the project. The project should include imple- mentation of positional and structural data capture involving the participating agency and the participating utilities for new utility installations and exposure of existing utilities, and the removal or updating of the status of those utilities that may have undergone relocation. The project shall include the pilot imple- mentation of computerized utilities’ data, maps, and models. This implementation will be used in utility locating and charac- terization for design purposes, and for damage prevention in excavation or construction projects. Existing laws and best practices regarding utility damage prevention should be fol- lowed. The advantages and disadvantages of the proposed approaches should be recorded. The scope of the study was adjusted several times as the study progressed from the project’s start in September 2009 to the proof of concept/pilot demonstration in July 2013. A sig- nificant redirection and narrowing of the scope occurred in January 2012 following a 9-month hold on research activities. With the narrowed scope, many of the study objectives were not addressed to the level of detail originally anticipated but rather were addressed in a more general way through narrative and recommendations. The reduced scope included the devel- opment of a nonproprietary 3-D utility location data reposi- tory and a proof of concept/pilot demonstration. The proof of concept/pilot demonstration involved taking utility infrastruc- ture (e.g., water main, gas main, telecom segment) located in a highway right-of-way of an actual field project segment, load- ing it into editing tools, posting the utility infrastructure seg- ment into the developed 3-D storage repository, extracting the same section of utility infrastructure from the 3-D data reposi- tory, updating it with a change, and posting the updated utility feature back into the 3-D data storage repository.