A GPRS Case Study

Providing Safe Urban Power Distribution System Installation

Highlights

THE BOTTOM LINE

"GPRS has been able to continually support our customer through multiples phases of this project. Ultimately, the power utility has been able to benefit from our partnership, allowing the new power distribution project to move smoothly from the design, into the construction phase of the project.” – Curtis Hoag, Market Segment Leader, Power

INDUSTRY

SERVICE

LOCATION

PM Insight

Deliverables

PROJECT APPLICATION

Allow for the clash-free installation of a new electrical duct bank in an urban area as part of a new power distribution system

ASK

Confirm the existence and location of all public and private subsurface utilities before the installation of an electrical duct bank to detect potential design clashes

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Task

PROBLEM

The power utility company required accurate locations, depths, and maps of all public & private utilities at the site of their proposed duct bank that they could share with their design & engineering teams
Many of the utility lines were under a roadway, impeding Project Managers’ efforts without traffic control
The duct bank had been designed without subsurface data; installing it without underground utility maps had a high probability of a clash and/or utility strike

Solution

GPRS Project Managers instituted traffic control measures to ensure a safe work zone
Ground penetrating radar (GPR) and electromagnetic (EM) locating were deployed utilizing Subsurface Investigation Methodology (SIM) to locate all buried utilities, public & private, providing depth readings where possible
Utility location and mapping were accomplished via on-site field markings and GPS; those findings were uploaded to SiteMap^® to create maps and drawings detailing the location and type of each utility line

Benefits

The power utility now has accurate existing conditions documents of its site, even depths of utilities under a busy roadway
The design team could define any potential clashes and rework prior to construction to save valuable time and money, and preserve safety
Designers, stakeholders, and contractors could see their initial results within minutes, and could collaborate seamlessly from anywhere via SiteMap’s^® cloud-based platform and mobile application
GPRS provides a complimentary SiteMap^® Personal subscription, PDF and .KMZ file for every utility locate