Contractors and highway engineers will be able to view 3D maps of the utility services beneath their feet, using hand-held computers, if the latest streetworks research project is a success.
Researchers aiming to create the first 3D maps of underground pipes and cables claim it will also generate millions of pounds in savings for UK plc. The £2.2M project, backed by the Department for Trade and Industry, aims to integrate existing digital and paper-based records, and link these with data from satellite and ground-based positioning systems.
It is called VISTA – visualising integrated information on buried assets to reduce street works – and is led by Leeds and Nottingham universities. They have more than £900,000 from the DTI’s technology programme together with support from 19 companies and organisations, including utility companies and ~Transport for London~. They believe more accurate information will help reduce the numbers of holes dug, ensure they are in the right place, and avoid damage to unexpected pipes and cables.
A reduction in roadworks of just 0.1% would save the economy millions, apart from environmental and safety benefits, said Tony Cohn, professor of automated reasoning at Leeds.‘Even where we have records, many are now very inaccurate, as reference points such as kerbs or buildings have moved or been demolished,’ he said. One challenge, said Cohn, was to create a centimetre-accurate satellite-based local technology that could record in-street observations in ‘urban canyons’.
These recordings would have to be linked to each utility’s information, while this complete picture would need to be accessible and comprehensible to contractors, utility companies and planners. VISTA links with the ongoing £1M Mapping the underworld project funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. Leeds, Nottingham and other universities and their collaborators are researching improved sensor technologies to find pipes, ways to ‘tag’ them when newly laid, plus GPS and cross-sector data integration. This dovetails with the work of the National Underground Assets Group to co-ordinate data exchange in the industry (Surveyor, 29 September 2005).
VISTA would focus on the technology, and NUAG on standardising processes and protocols for capturing, recording and storing data, said Ordnance Survey, which is involved in both projects. The aims and intended outputs were complementary, agreed Lester Sonden, of the National Joint Utilities Group, and would bring about ‘reduced disruption’.
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