Construction, Civil, Survey and GIS Converge to Define Positioning

Project: Road improvement - in the heart of the city - high traffic

Goals: Optimal traffic detour strategy, productive construction and avoid delays such as damaged utility systems

This scenario is commonplace.  How can multiple technologies and professional disciplines converge to address this and other tasks with accuracy, efficiency and productivity while providing less cost to the tax payer?

Consider this short example:

The municipality provides data to the contractor.  This data is a result of cooperation between the civil, survey and GIS professions that adhere to set of standards.  This data contains the existing surface (what the site “is”), the design surface (what the site “will be”) and all utilities, underground, on ground and above ground.  The contractor begins the project using a 3D excavator to dig and to locate underground utilities; some to be moved, some to be avoided and some to be installed.  The operator inside the excavator is looking at a computer screen.  The screen clearly displays the existing surface and the desired  design surface.  But also displayed is all of the underground, on ground and above ground utilities. In addition, traffic is monitored and redirected via GPS navigation.

This is not the future.  These technologies do exist.  We can use higher accuracy RTK and TS for GIS data collection.  We can merge and share data from all disciplines.  Our challenge is professional cooperation in developing and applying these standards so these processes are in place more seamless.  Lets move forward.

More to come …

-Randy