Two New Standards for Utility Infrastructure Data Introduced At SUMSF
With one million strikes in the USA, it works out to one strike a minute during a 10 hour work day.
During a March 22, 2022, livestream presentation, Philip Meis, President of Utility Mapping Services, spoke on behalf of the American Society of Engineers. He presented two standards that were being rolled out “as we speak.”
ASCE 38-22, a standard guideline for Investigating and documenting existing utilities, and ASCE 75-22, a standard guideline for recording and exchanging utility infrastructure data.
The takeaways Meis hoped the participants would get were how utilities were at risk, an overview of the revised ASCE 38 for investigating existing utilities, the new ASCE “as-installed” standard for utilities, and an overview of OGC MUDDI. Meis also spoke about enabling emerging 3D digital technologies and cost savings.
The issues faced included the lack of awareness or interest, the mentality of “it’s not my problem,” and no national standard for documenting utility infrastructure. In the past decades there was not as much infrastructure to worry about. Meis pointed out how beneficial the new standards are in the planning stage.
Philip Meis, President of Utility Mapping Services
Meis discussed how design impacts public welfare. Utility relocations, utility services, traffic impacts, health and safety of workers and the public, project schedules, and contractor risks, all have an impact. Even unforeseen issues were addressed.
Meis spoke about the 2015 gas main installation case study before getting into the specifics of ASCE 38-22 and ASCE 75-22, including their quality levels. He mentioned how prequalified people are needed to do this work, and need to know additional information is advisable. It is important to know how to modify and adapt designs to avoid problems, accelerate the project delivery process, design a constructible project and have solutions ready for when problems occur.
The similarities and differences of the standards were discussed, as well as the specific performance goals and their purposes.
Meis also discussed survey observations, features and attributes, and data stewardship attributes.
You can watch the live-streamed presentation on Youtube below.
