Initiative

Underground Infrastructure Pilot

The Model for Underground Data Definition and Interchange (MUDDI) Workshop reviewed potential use case scenarios and provided feedback on how to refine and improve the MUDDI Data Model. It also reviewed a draft version of an underground data RoI model Cost Benefit Assessment of Subterranean Information Management.

The OGC Underground Infrastructure Pilot: MUDDI Workshop

The MUDDI ETL-Plugfest Workshop was held at the Fund for the City of New York (FCNY) on July 24-25. Here are the Workshop presentations:

The original Workshop agenda is provided below for reference:

MUDDI Workshop Agenda – July 24-25, 2018 – Fund for the City of New York

    
Time Slot Session Topic
Day 1 July 24   Continental breakfast will be provided.
    Question to Participants: Would anybody like to take advantage of the demo opportunity?
Morning 9:00 -10:30 Overview Welcome
    Review of Concept Development Study (CDS) Outcomes
    The MUDDI Model
    Benefit Analysis and Deployment Strategies
    Participant Introductions
Coffee Break 10:30 – 11:00    
Mid-morning 11:00 – 12:30 Presentations Ordnance Survey Great Britain – Newcastle Innovation Festival outcomes; Iceberg update
    KLIP / IMKL – Update from Flanders and INSPIRE
    ASCE/CI – Coordination with ASCE as-built quality standards
Lunch 12:30 – 1:00   Sandwiches and soft drinks will be provided.
Afternoon 1:00 – 6:00 Presentations DOITT – Experience of NYC pilot underground project using MUDDI
  (~20 min) Governing the Subsurface: Squandered Opportunities, Debra Laefer, Center for Urban Science + Progress
    Bentley Systems – Is MUDDI trying to do too much?
    Technical University of Munich – CityGML Utility Network ADE
    Arup – UUS data model for clash detection of new infrastructure works
    Columbia University – Using multiple sensors, ML and data fusion to map the underground
    University of Vermont – Underground Utility Sensing with Augmented Reality
    Sean Ahearn / CARSI (no slides)
    MTA – Linear referencing for NYC MTA (deferred)
     
(optional) Dinner as a Group Bistro Les Amis Sponsorship opportunity still available
     
Day 2 July 25   Continental breakfast will be provided.
  Discussion How can MUDDI be improved, simplified, connected to other standards
  (vote on topics) – Should we initially focus on one use case such as excavations (simple & complex – for bldg foundations)
    – How to prove MUDDI value one step at a time – the value created at each step justifying the next one.
    – How should we approach environmental data: broad brushstrokes (voxels?) to point data (borehole)?
    – What other data can we start to add: Cyclomedia, curbs, elevation data (LiDAR), geological, hydrography, excavation patterns, pothole patterns, watermain break locations, layers of other utility problems?
    – Should we build a synthetic data set to avoid data confidentiality issues?
    – Should we also focus on transmission, control, storage, and generation features?
    – Others
 
Selected Discussion Topics

  
    — Dataset
    — Data sharing carrots & sticks
    — Piloting
    — Use Cases
     
  Use Cases Emergency response
    Routine street excavations
    Utility maintenance programs
    Large scale construction projects
    Disaster planning and response
    Smart cities programs

.

A Call for Participation (CFP) in the MUDDI ETL-Plugfest workshop has now been announced.

OGC invites you to submit proposal papers and attend the Model for Underground Data Definition and Interchange (MUDDI) ETL-Plugfest Workshop to be held July 24-25 at the New York City Offices of the Fund for the City of New York (FCNY). There is no cost to attend the Workshop, but seating is limited and registration is required. Priority will be given to registrants submitting position papers and undertaking trial ETL tasks to report on at the workshop, and observers will be accommodated as space permits.

One of the primary workshop goals is to evaluate the Underground Data Conceptual Model (“MUDDI Data Model”) through implementation and testing so as to provide feedback on how to refine and improve it, as well as to guide the choice and development of standard implementations. Another workshop goal is to review a draft version of an underground data RoI model Cost Benefit Assessment of Subterranean Information Management (under review). This model is intended to help justify investments in underground data gathering and sharing by documenting multiple sources of returns on such investment and providing a methodology for estimating their value. It is offered as a shared community asset, a work in progress that would stand to benefit from participant feedback.

Additional details can be found in the full CFP.

The OGC Underground Infrastructure Pilot: Call for Sponsors

OGC’s recently completed Underground Concept Development Study (CDS) (Engineering Report at Underground CDS Engineering Report) paved the way for the next step, the OGC Underground Pilot. The CDS Engineering Report was also used as input to the recent Location Powers: Underground event.

A Call for Sponsors for the Underground Infrastructure Pilot phase has now been announced. This pilot will create, test, and validate a reusable, standards-based underground information architecture that will enhance interoperability for ‘smarter’ underground projects in cities around the world.

Detailed information regarding the pilot schedule and scope appears below.

Milestones of the Underground Pilot (dates may change)

  • Call for Sponsors – Press release announcing the pilot and seeking organizations to work with OGC in considering sponsoring the pilot. (Complete, Sept 2017)
  • Call for Participants – Initial pilot architecture as approved by the Sponsors and directions on how to propose are publicly announced (CFP)
  • Participant selection – Proposals to the CFP are evaluated by OGC staff with recommended selection confirmed by the Sponsors (CFP + 3 months)
  • Pilot execution – Beginning with a kickoff workshop and ending in demonstrations, the development effort by the participants using online collaboration methods.
  • Demonstrations – Demonstrations of new capabilities in several cities with scenario and data based on the city using a common architecture. (CFP + 10 mo.)
  • Production and publication of engineering reports, best practices, draft specifications and change requests. (CFP +12 mo.)
  • Follow-on standards development in the OGC Standards Program

Deliverables of an OGC pilot:

  • Testing of running software from several organizations to insure interoperability of the independently developed implementations based on open standards;
  • Demonstration of policy oriented scenarios with the deployed code.  These scenarios show the previously unavailable capability from a non-technical point of view.
  • Documentation of the results of the architecture, testing and demonstration.  The reports then become the basis of procurement activities of operational systems.

Scope of the underground pilot will include demonstration of a common architecture and data model in multiple cities. The number of cities will depend upon the Sponsors.  
The Sponsors will identify scenarios with an initial focus on:

  • Street excavations
  • Large-scale construction
  • Disaster planning and response

Getting smart about the assets you can’t see

The cost and time required to build, maintain, and improve underground assets is substantial to both the owner and the stakeholders who interact with them. Multiple organizations build underground infrastructure without sharing its location to others that also interact in that space – this is a recipe for disaster, and often results in unintended strikes, damage, and even explosions. 

The Ordnance Survey UK reports “approximately £150 million is incurred directly by strike damage to third party assets alone by utilities across the UK with indirect costs around ten times this sum. Fatalities are a severe consequence with, for example, approximately 12 deaths and 600 serious injuries per year from contact with electricity cables.”

Spatial awareness of underground assets using standards 

Holistic understanding of the relationships between underground assets and above ground infrastructure is needed to minimize service breakdowns and mitigate the impact of disasters. “Mapping the underground infrastructure is extremely important for the operations of smart cities,” said Alan Leidner, Director of the Center for Geospatial Innovation at the Fund for the City of New York. “The OGC Underground Pilot project is the next step in making underground mapping a reality.”

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has been at the forefront of creating standards for the spatial industry for more than 24 years, and in that time has developed a rapid, inclusive, innovative, and effective user-driven method to create open, agreed-upon standards designed to benefit the industry – and community – as a whole. Based on 100 previous innovation projects, the OGC Underground Mapping and Modeling Pilot Project will deliver a tested, standards based architecture for Smart Cities to procure the next generation of underground information management leading to safer and more efficient cities.

For additional background information, see the Bloomberg Businessweek article: Nobody Knows What Lies Beneath New York City.

Businessweek Underground

The OGC Innovation Program Pilots

The OGC Innovation Program provides a fast-paced setting for geospatial technology users and providers to work collaboratively in an agile development environment to develop, evolve, test, demonstrate and validate candidate geospatial standards under marketplace conditions. Such initiatives have proven to:

  • Reduce technology risk through accelerating development, testing and acceptance of interoperability standards with the refinement of standards and best practices
  • Expand the market and improve choice by encouraging industry adoption of new standards and best practices, ensuring market availability of interoperable solutions
  • Mobilize new technologies through providing participants with real world experience and a platform to innovate while driving early adoption of standards
  • Provide cost effective method for sponsors and participants to share expertise and development while gaining early marketplace insight and advantage

Benefits to Sponsors of the Underground Pilot include:

  • Assess and affect market direction based on sponsor’s needs
  • Visibility as global leader in information technology critical to smarter cities
  • Amplification of funding by multiple sponsors’ common/similar problems
  • Leveraging effort up to 3.5 times based on participant in-kind effort
  • Accelerated process for workable interface specifications in 4-6 months
  • Follow-on procurements using proven standards-based architecture
  • Leading to safer and more efficient cities.

The Underground Pilot will build on previous OGC Pilot Implementation initiatives. This past experience shows results across the spectrum of spatial information systems

  • Aviation Pilot produced proven standards that are now operational for sharing of civilian aeronautical information management (AIM)
  • Empire Challenge Pilot enabled sharing of sensor data in the defense and intelligence domain based on the OGC Sensor Web Enablement standards.
  • GEOSS Architecture Implementation Pilots defined the architecture for the Group on Earth Observations tested through an initial operating capability.
  • Arctic Spatial Data Pilot demonstrating the diversity, richness and value of a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) to Arctic stakeholders.
  • Future City Pilot, Phase 1, demonstrated how use of CityGML and IFC together to enhance financial, environmental, and social outcomes for citizens living in cities.

A listing of all past OGC IP initiatives can be found at http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects/initiatives/past

Anybody wishing to learn more about this initiative, or about the OGC Interoperability Program in general, can contact Scott Serich, Director Innovation Programs at sserich (at) opengeospatial.org or visit the OGC Innnovation Program page.