Given it will be the utilities and those with buried infrastructure who will benefit the most from this, I would hope this project would be funded by a levy on buried infrastructure.

Given the “costs” it would seem a total pricing point of circa £800m for the service Isn’t unreasonable. Which would probably make this a “nice earner” for OS.

We all benefit from underground infrastructure, we all benefit from it not being struck. Who do you think will end up being charged via price increases if industry had to fund it?

A good point but given the costs a back hoe can incur, it should save on bills. Whether we get to see the benefit of that is another matter.

We are already paying for the £2.4 bn of costs currently being incurred.

The question is really whether we, the customers and bill payers see anything; I suspect not.

The only real risk is a future Conservative/Reform government will want to sell off OS - can’t have a successful company operated by the government…

really, will be the quality of the info going into it.

I live in a corner terrace house, I came home to find planned maintenance on the feeder in the road to the side, and my house's power dead with no warning.

I spoke to the guys and the supervisor came over and pulled out their map.

It clearly showed the feed for my property entering the front of the house, so no need to warn me about the power being cut off.

I showed the supervisor the feed coming in through my wall half way down the house.

"Bugger" was the response, as far as he knew, that map was from the 60s, and it had been wrong for over 50 years. He sent off a correction.

I used to work for a water company, and the precision of mapping was always poor for historical reasons. Hundreds of millions have been spent to convert old paper maps to digital, and even to re-survey existing assets, but the simple reality is that even these digital maps have poor accuracy and that is only established when somebody starts digging. There are some areas where the digital mapping is very accurate, but unfortunately that's not the norm.

There's some major works going on around here; several kilometres of ditches four or six metres wide, with a couple of quarter metre plastic pipes looking a bit lost and lonely. Should be easy to get them on a map; I reckon you could see them from orbit.

(I dunno what they are but I suspect they're routing facilities to a new estate of several hundred homes. They're very good at digging a hole one week, then filling it in the next, then digging it again...)

Even when you hand dig, in many places the services are very close together and a 6" cast iron pipe looks like any other - Gas or Water? Yes the gas men drilled the wrong one so everyone down the hole got wet. Cue lots of angry local residents as the water had to be cut off to fix it. Mapping isn't going to solve that.

> I live in a corner terrace house, I came home to find planned maintenance on the feeder in the road to the side, and my house's power dead with no warning.

You should have thanked them for making your computers more secure

They were still (just) running on battery power.

But I did get an automatic compensation payout, for disconnection of service with out warning for planned maintenance.

It will be garbage in and garbage out

They're wasting money, there's already an OS library in Python...

Previously, any organization wanting to dig up the road might have to contact all other parties that own or may have owned assets in the area, wait for each to respond, then compile information so it can be read and understood by workers.

"This process is slow, inefficient and makes inaccuracies leading to accidental damage more likely," the award notice noted.

That's not really how it works. So a field crew digging up the road would wander along the route with a gizmo like this-

https://shop.leica-geosystems.com/utility-detection/dd-locators/leica-detect-dd120-locator/buy

and a couple of cans of chalk spray. Assuming some telco's sub-sub contractor has installed fibre cable with a detector wire, which some didn't. Or they just start digging and there's the inevitable back-hoe fade. Then the cable owner can be identified easily when their repair crew turns up to admire their fibre dangling from an excavator bucket.

T'other challenge is assuming whoever buried infrastructure also had GIS, and whoever installed it had accurate survey gadgets so that routes & depths can be accurately reflected in any Ordnance Survey GIS.. Which can also have some FUN! challenges in rural infrastructure given processes like soil creep can move cables, sometimes several feet. Which gets to be even more FUN! when buried cables un-bury themselves.

But it could be a challenging project. Especially given the commercial side as infrastructure owners might not be too keen to give OS their data, and then be charged arm+leg to access it. Especially as it's rather commercially sensitive, and could potentially increase risks of malicious damage if users could see all operators infrastructure.

A lot of utility companies have GIS these days. The data entry is all too often by the process known as "best guess". Perhaps the I in GIS is doing too much heavy lifting.

The data entry is all too often by the process known as "best guess". Perhaps the I in GIS is doing too much heavy lifting.

It shouldn't be. Others have mentioned the challenges with importing historic data from paper records that might have their own inherent inaccuracies. So how accurate the surveying and mapping would have been in the days before GPS and much simpler digital surveying tools. Then it's how much metadata can be added into GIS. So having used multiple systems, on occasion a cable may suddenly cut through buildings for non-obvious reasons.

Sometimes that's just because data points are missing, sometimes it's because the cable may dive down into a sewer, utilidor etc. Then there can be issues with the quality of the map data, and Google Earth can sometimes be out by a few metres compared to survey data. It can be pretty common to see fibre routes apparently running under rows of buildings because .kmz files aren't always that accurate. But I'd also have concerns regarding security, especially around sensitive and the most Critical of CNI sites. You really don't want that information widely available because it gives malicious users the knowledge about where to cut services. Those routes can often be classified, and can't be shared with people who don't really need to know and aren't vetted.

That's always been a pet hate of mine when customers demand .kmz files because once that data is out there, it can't be controlled and can be dangerous.

PAS 128 applies - anybody digging holes in the ground should (should, not necessarily will) be following its guidance.

4 types of survey:

Type D is the desktop survey / review of records. This should always be done.

It's also not that slow (in the UK).

There are numerous suppliers of 'desk top data' (historical maps, potentially contaminating industries, historic maps, etc) and they all (well, the ones I've used) provide utilities records if requested. The service is quick. The biggest concern is that the records only show what the records show...and if they are inaccurate, then you can hit something that you didn't think was there.

Type C is a site walkover - basically, taking note of where the gullies, manholes, inspection chambers, etc are, and comparing them to the record plans. If everything matches, the plans are probably good (probably).

Type B is the 'geophys' - typically, Ground penetration radar, to detect stuff and confirm the records. Cable Avoidance Tools (similar to what you show in the link) might also be used, particularly with a signal generator putting a signal into the utility if possible (CAT and Genny).

Type A is the 'we really want to be sure' option, of (very carefully) digging up the utility that you want to avoid, to positively prove its position. It's called a verification survey, I've been involved in doing one once (high pressure gas main very close to where we wanted to put a borehole).

In addition to that, anyone breaking ground should (should, not do) be following a permit to dig process, which should, by default require the Type D survey, the type C survey and then use of a CAT as a minimum.

Beyond that, anyone sensible also checks with something like Linesearchbeforeyoudig (https://lsbud.co.uk/), which already does what the OS seem to be intent on replicating (though with a less than complete list of utility asset owners).

Some utility strikes are bad luck - typically, the records are wrong to start with.

However, I suspect most are due to people not following good practice; I'm not sure that a more precise (more accurate?) database held by OS will do much to improve human behaviour.

Type A is the 'we really want to be sure' option, of (very carefully) digging up the utility that you want to avoid, to positively prove its position. It's called a verification survey, I've been involved in doing one once (high pressure gas main very close to where we wanted to put a borehole).

Those can also be fun and where telecomms meets archaelogy. So had a few jobs where it ended up being "Oh look! It's a bomb!". Best one of those involved a fibre job into a building full of lawyers who were screaming and threatening to sue because their installation was delayed. So suggested they look out the window or just wait for their evacuation order. Or just finding actual archaeology and then having to figure out an alternate route. Hey, we found a plague pit, but don't worry, blowing fibre through it won't spread any spores.. probably. Those gave me an excuse to go see the work site and chat with the archaeologists & learn a bit more about the history around whatever we were digging up.

Plus far too many times explaining to sales and customers that standard install costs don't apply when new infrastructure is needed, and there are many reasons why excess construction charges can appear excessive. Prices subject to survey means just that, and we've done the desktop and the job seems plausible.

I suspect most are due to people not following good practice; I'm not sure that a more precise (more accurate?) database held by OS will do much to improve human behaviour.

A lot of it comes down to simple cost - is it cheaper to do all the survey work first, or just grab an old map for CYA, cross fingers and dig, knowing that occasionally you'll get a bill from the owner of the infrastructure you chopped. If the latter works out cheaper, that's what they will do.

"So a field crew digging up the road would wander along the route with a gizmo like this-"

Which only work approximately, hence the regular instances of utility workers hitting each others (or their own) buried assets.

Which only work approximately, hence the regular instances of utility workers hitting each others (or their own) buried assets.

They should work, but have their limitations. And sometimes hitting those assets has resulted in people being killed. One case I heard about was someone cutting a power cable with a shovel. The street lighting circuit was controlled by a remote switching cab, so wasn't energised until lighting up time. So non-live cable became live, and killed the person. On another memorable occasion, we were mole drilling to run fibre under the Thames. On the way up, the drill managed to go through a gas main and a HV power cable, which resulted in some quite spectacular fireworks. Luckily on that one, only the mole was killed but it worked out rather expensive.

Anyone who has done any genealogy work will know that all manual records are at the mercy of every person who has had an input. It could be as simple as misreading spelling/numbers or it could be that the person in question has a preferred method to do things which differs from others doing the same task (US/UK date format anyone?).

Since cables tended to be laid in trenches which could be a couple of feet wide if people needed to get down into them, then that is a huge margin of error for actual location even before you start looking at soil creep etc. plus there are no guarantees that later work by company Y has not moved the cable of company X to give themselves more room.

Digitising this data runs the risk of inferring an accuracy which is, in reality, pure guesswork. Will they be accepting the blame for any discrepancies?

Also as planned and as built or as laid down may differ. Bringing drawings up to date is often just not done

There are so many reasons for this being a massive challenge.

First up is that not everything that was done has been recorded. As an extreme example, some of the drainage systems in York were built by the Romans (what have they ever done for us?), so good luck asking the emperor where the GIS data for it all is! As well a the general poor record keeping that probably gets worse the further back in time you go. The work on the Botley Road Railway Bridge in Oxford has suffered from this in a big way.

Next up is that some infrastructure was variously defined as strategically important, so its location was not public knowledge (this is where the myth about the Post Office Tower in London being a secret location comes from - spoiler alert: it wasn't, it was marked on the public OS Maps).

Finally you have muppets who don't check (or trip over one of the above problems) and put their drilling machine through the infrastructure. See: [1]Olympic cock-up knocks East London off Internet in 2009 and [2]Obstruction of a tunnel between Old Street and Essex Road stations where the design of a building above a railway tunnel had several of the pilings going through the railway tunnel!

[1] https://www.theregister.com/2009/04/06/bt_exchange_problems/

[2] https://www.gov.uk/raib-reports/penetration-and-obstruction-of-a-tunnel-between-old-street-and-essex-road-stations-london

Not sure how different it is to this one:

https://lsbud.co.uk/

I also had a "huh" on seeing the headline. In the 80 I was working with mapping software that was being used by NJUG (National Joint Utilities Group) to do just this; avoid the electric company digging up the water main or gas pipes and visa versa.

A quick bit of Googling tells ne that NJUG became Streetworks in 2017 and Streetworks seems to be more of a trade body now than a hardware database so I don't know what happened inbetween. Probably funding I guess.

its just reality thats got it wrong.

That happened here a good few years ago where the electric company very kindly marked out the route of a 11Kv supply line so that a construction company operating close to it would not put a digger through it.

One hospital trip for flash blindness, a new bucket for the digger and several hours of blackout later proved the electric company's data was wrong by 4 feet

More and more car journeys are being disrupted by road works. Especially at night it can be difficult to find a way home.

We motorists are being ignored, even though our road tax pays for the roads. Anyone who wants to dig up a road should reimburse 10,000 motorists, directly, specifically, by name, and in real money.

Try public transport if you feel you're ignored.

While sympathetic to your plight as a motorist, in the UK, road tax does not actually pay for the roads - I think it did start out as a hypothecated tax, but was quite quickly changed to be just-another-tax, which fills the government's coffers to be spent on whatever they want to spend it on.

Excessive disruption was supposed to be brought under control by the New Roads and Streetworks Act (1990-something or other). Some bits of the act seem to work, but I'm not sure it's been that effective in promoting the joined-up planning of streetworks that it was supposed to.

The OS was initially required to record above ground features only, so subterranean stuff will be new. Under the above mentioned Act, they have a statutory right to go onto any land in the UK and survey it, but not dig it up to find out what is underneath.