Better Underground Utility Mapping Solutions for Higher Industry Standards
Quality standards for underground infrastructure locations have gone through major changes across various developed countries including the U.S. and Canada. This shift is understandable, considering that there is a massive expansion and update of network infrastructure going on across the world.
Geoff Zeiss, an industry consultant, and blogger of the site Between the Poles says that “It is interesting to review global underground location quality standards and see that most of these standards have evolved in the last years which reflects the accelerating development of new technologies for detecting and locating underground infrastructure.”
He goes onto cite the imminent release of the new ASCE Standard Guideline for Recording and Exchanging Utility Infrastructure Data (also referred to as the utility as-built standard), produced by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE’s), Construction Institute (CI), and Utility Engineering and Surveying Institute (UESI). He notes that it is designed to complement the existing ASCE 38-02 Standard Guidelines for the Collection and Depiction of Existing Subsurface Utility Data, which was published in 2002, and was intended to standardize the classification of the quality of location information about existing subsurface utility networks on engineering drawings. The standard defines four quality levels based on the method used to determine the location of underground assets.
Geoff Zeiss specifically mentions the inadequacies of ASCE 38-02, particularly how it is “not prescriptive with respect to accuracy and is generally 2D in focus.”
Rather, quality standards for mapping location data quality are now catching up to levels in 3D, as reflected by the impending update to the ASCE as-built standard, as well as others such as PAS 128 in the UK, the DICT in France, and the CSA S-250 in Canada.
So it is obvious that with such updates in standards, mapping technology must evolve with them as well. Currently, there are many mapping technologies currently available on the market such as Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) technology, Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), or other beacon-based systems. In other words, the matter of choice is not a problem for stakeholders wishing to get better mapping information.
PRISUM’s Solution for Better Underground Utility Mapping
However, we have mentioned in an earlier article how gyroscopic mapping systems are far better than other methods. In the case of gyroscopic mapping technology, unlike other technology that relies on sending signals below ground, the probe is always inside the pipe and gives back frequent XYZ location information. This means it provides all sorts of information that ground-penetrating radar and beacon-based systems may miss, such as depth, undulations, and bend radius. Gyroscopic mapping systems are therefore optimally positioned to serve this increasing demand for accurate 3D location mapping.
In the age of as-built standards being updated to reflect the utility and infrastructure needs of today, it is critical that owners of utilities and networks invest inaccurate as-built mapping information for their underground assets. From our standpoint, only gyroscopic mapping technology can serve that purpose with efficiency and cost-effectiveness.