THE MAGAZINE FOR THE DRAINAGE,WATER &WASTEWATER INDUSTRIES
SPECIAL FEATURE
Carsten said:“Whatwe tried tomake happen in theNorth Eastwas to embed a culture of data sharing,where organisationswhomight be obliged to give information about their data becomemuchmore proactive in providing relevant information for the benefit of all. “If everybody puts data into this data sharing scheme then you can do newthings. “You can improve and re-engineer business processes that have been in place for a long period of
time.Mainly around safe excavations, which can based upon rich, integrated information thatwasn’t accessible before. "You canmake thema lotmore efficient, a lot safer, and you can enable these facilities to provide a better service to their end customers through shorter disruption times.” With regards to the legal side of things, theNUAR pilot addressed licenses and liabilities that comewith the use of the third-party data. Every organisation puts their own terms and conditions and caveats onto the data they share. Carsten said: "In the long run, itwould be desirable to come upwith a joint set of terms and conditions formost of the suppliers to sign up to.” On a technical level, the challenges are around data quality issues. Data has been captured overmany yearswith varying degrees of accuracy. Carsten said: "Thewaywe have approached this is to saywe know there are issueswith data quality, but that is not an excuse not to share data. “We look at the data that is inNUAR, not as the definitive viewofwhat is underground, but as the best possible intelligence ofwhatmight be there. “The data providers have established the principle that even ifwe knowthe data is not perfect,wewill share the datawith themindset that over time therewill be continuous improvement in the quality of the data.” One key feature of the trialwas that it allowed feedback direct from the
field.Workers on-site can contribute notes such as inaccurate
locations or unidentified buried assets. Carsten said:“We always startwith the datawhen it comes to an excavation, but then there is the experience of the field engineerwho will addmore information and intelligence to it tomake a safe excavation. “Wewere lucky in theNorth East that everyonewas quite open to the idea of sharing in thisway. "We hope that as the benefits of these continual updates are realised, itwill encourage this behaviour to becomemorewidespread across the rest of the country.”
Gamechanger
Integrating the data onto a commonmap onlyworks because all the utility companies already use a common basemap to register their assets –OSMastermapTopography layer. OSwaswell placed to play the role of intermediary because all parties already relied onOS data above the ground. Carsten said:“Utilities in theNorth East sawus as the trusted data
broker.Theywere quite comfortable in sharing datawith us and trusting us to distribute the data according to the terms and conditions that they set. “TogetherwithNorthumbrianWaterwe brought the community together and provedwe could create the technology tomake this happen. "We created the legal and security environment around it so everyone felt safe sharing data. “This all alignedwith theGeospatial Commission’s objectives to create an underground assets register.” He added:“This can be a gamechanger because it is essentially about digital transformation of utilities and local authorities’operations and howthey dealwith infrastructure. “They have access to all the other organisations’data,which gives thembetter insight about the practicalities in areas,whether they are doing emergencyworks, replacement programmes or a newhousing estatewhich needs to be connected.”
FOLLOW US
August 2020 | drain TRADER 49
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