Stakeholder needs for ground penetrating radar utility location

Andrew Thomas, Christopher Rogers, David Chapman, Nicole Metje, J Castle

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle

27 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In the UK alone there are millions of miles Of underground utilities with often inaccurate, incomplete. or nor)existent location records that cause significant health and safety problems for maintenance personnel, together with the potential for large, unnecessary, social and financial costs for their upkeep and repair. This has led to increasing Use of Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) for Utility location, but without detailed consideration of the degree of location accuracy required by stakeholders - i.e. all those directly involved in streetworks ranging from utility owners to contractors and surveyors and government departments. In order to ensure that stakeholder requirements are incorporated into a major new UK study, entitled Mapping the Underworld, a questionnaire has been Used to determine the current and future Utility location accuracy requirements. The resulting data indicate that stakeholders generally require location tolerances better than 100 mill at depths usually extending down to 3 in, and more occasionally to 5 m, below surface level, providing significant challenges to GPR if their needs are to be met in all ground conditions. As well as providing Much useful data oil stakeholder needs, these data are also providing a methodology for assessment of GPR Utility location in terms of the factor most important to them - the degree to which the equipment provides location within their own accuracy requirement (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)345-351
Number of pages7
JournalJournal of Applied Geophysics
Volume67
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Apr 2009

Keywords

  • Stakeholder needs
  • MTU
  • Utility location
  • Mapping the Underworld
  • Ground-penetrating-radar
  • Questionnaire

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