ArcGIS for Cross Bore Management

[Hannajane-Prichett]

ArcGIS for Cross Bore Management

By Hannajane Prichett & Tom DeWitte

With industry associations advocating for standards and guidelines, coupled with the growing adoption of trenchless technology, it’s become crucial for gas utilities to implement a comprehensive cross bore program. A cross bore occurs when a new utility line, commonly a gas line, is accidentally installed through an existing utility like a sewer line using trenchless technology during installation. Unfortunately, this can go unnoticed for months or even years. The real trouble starts when there's a blockage in the sewer. If a plumber comes in to clear it with an auger, they might unknowingly cut through the gas line. This can create a serious safety risk, as the leaking gas could seep into the home, putting everyone inside in danger. It’s a hidden threat that can lead to disaster, making it crucial for both utility companies and homeowners to be aware of the risks associated with cross bores.

Identifying potential locations of cross-bores, tracking where inspections have occurred and are occurring is a location problem. A location problem that ArcGIS, its analytical and inspections capabilities are well suited to handle.

ArcGIS provides your team with the essential tools to efficiently manage field operations. With its capabilities, you can easily assign tasks to field crews, oversee ongoing work, and review completed inspections directly from the office. This integrated approach streamlines workflows, enhances communication, and ensures your team has access to the information they need to do their jobs. With industry associations pushing to create best practices, Esri’s cross bore configuration improves collaboration between the office and the field to ensure inspections are happening on time, creating a more efficient and effective cross-bore program.

Managing Cross Bore Data

In Utilities, where safety is paramount, effectively managing and tracking the lifecycle of inspections for a cross-bore program is crucial. We start in the office with a dashboard that gives us a clear overview of several important aspects. We can see current work assignments, crew availability, and emergency inspections that need to be completed.

This dashboard acts as our command center, helping us allocate resources efficiently and prioritize tasks easily. Not only does this dashboard give us key information but allows us to perform key actions. Reporting is an important part of this workflow. You’re in the office and need to export a report on a post-construction inspection that was completed. You no longer need to look through the stack of papers filed away. Just click on the inspection and generate the report. Esri’s feature report widget makes it easy to select the inspection and export a formatted, populated report.

The data source for the generated report is a feature layer associated with an ArcGIS Survey 123 survey. The report template is created in Microsoft Word with Arcade syntax and the associated survey field names embedded into the form template.

You might be asking yourself – how does the work get assigned? This workflow utilizes data exported from a work management system, but you might have a direct integration with the work management system your organization uses. This ability to batch-assign fieldwork helps streamline the work-assignment process. Once the assignments have been uploaded, the field crews can get started on their inspections.

Since this web application references data in a services-based architecture, updates from the field are immediately reflected in the office, offering a near-real-time view of ongoing work in the field and the statuses of the cross-bore inspections.

 

Working in the Field

Once the work is assigned, our field crew is dispatched so they can begin to perform their inspections.

With ArcGIS mobile applications, the field crews have access to everything they need right at their fingertips. With the exciting new ArcGIS Field Maps Field Tasks capability planned for release in 2025, workers in the field will be able to view personalized to-do lists directly within ArcGIS Field Maps. By integrating the capabilities of ArcGIS Workforce into Field Maps, your field crews can view, create, and manage their work all in one single mobile application.

 

The Inspections

Common to cross-bore programs is to have pre-construction inspections and post-construction inspections. These two inspections require different actions. With pop-up configurations using arcade, we can easily differentiate the two inspections, helping the field crews get their work done easily.

As our field workers are completing their inspections, with location tracking enabled, the office can view their real-time locations. This visibility helps the office stay connected and informed about what’s going on in the field. Additionally, while working in the field, workers can easily filter their task list to focus on inspections that require their attention first – ensuring that high-priority and emergency inspections are prioritized.

For post-construction inspections the field worker clicks on the “Complete Post Construction Inspection” button in the pop-up and is automatically taken to the post construction inspection form in Survey123.

Information from the field can be easily passed to our form through URL parameters. This is a unique URL that allows ArcGIS Field Maps and ArcGIS Survey123 to essentially talk to each other. This allows for a seamless field worker experience since fields in the form can be pre-populated. Our form also includes conditional visibility and picklists which minimize human error and saves time when filling out forms in the field. Once the form is submitted, the office can view the completed form.

Reviewing the Field Work

All the inspection information that was collected in the field is now readily available back in the office. This dashboard allows the office to see the work that was done in the field in more detail. We can view details like work order number, the field worker who completed the inspection, the gas on date, and days until out of compliance.

Even though there are no PHMSA regulations or requirements for cross bore management, industry associations are pushing best practices. It's well-known among utility companies that it typically takes about 90 days for a sewer to back up following the installation of a utility line, after which customers usually contact a plumber. This workflow uses a 90-day compliance window set by industry standards. Once that window for an inspection is missed it becomes past due. This helps the office ensure that inspections are made on time, and within that 90-day window.

Using the geographic approach, Esri’s tools have helped us develop a comprehensive cross bore management workflow. With Esri’s services-based architecture, and configurable applications, we have real-time visibility into any part of our cross-bore program.

PLEASE NOTE: The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent Esri’s position, strategies, or opinions.