UTILITY LINES AND FACILITY MANAGEMENT
- A TASK FOR THE SURVEYING ENGINEER
Prof. Lothar GRÜNDIG and Dr.-Ing. Frank
GIELSDORF, Germany
Key words: Facility Management, GIS, documentation,
Service lines.
Abstract
This paper deals with the specific tasks common to linear objects
and facility management systems relevant for surveying engineers.
The need for documenting their data using modern geographic
information systems (GIS) technologies is accepted without question
for energy providers, communication providers, and for traffic systems
of roads and rails. All gas, electricity and water suppliers are
required to document the geometrical position of the utility lines
constituting their respective networks. In areas of application where
geometric information of large scale has to be maintained, the data
for documenting the as built situation have a proportion of 80% of the
whole GIS investment, and these data normally survive several hard-
and software generations.
Facility management can be seen as a consequent extension of the
methods of managing company resources for utility lines into the
building sector. Therefore the basic tasks are similar, especially
proper spatial data acquisition for buildings and the interface to
computer aided facility management systems are required.
Computer Aided Facility Management Systems (CAFMS) map and manage
all cost relevant processes of landed property and buildings. In order
to find a suitable mapping, the processes have to be analyzed. Two
main classes of information result. There is the class of object
information dealing with object specific properties, and the geometry
related information. In general the geometry related information forms
the skeleton where all information, related to the property of
objects, can be referenced to.
Analyzing the effort necessary to generate and maintain a CAFMS, it
becomes obvious that the part of data acquisition and consistent
update of geometrical information causes immense cost. Therefore every
user of a CAFMS has a fundamental interest in minimizing this high
economic effort, taking into account the boundary condition that the
necessary quality will just be maintained.
The surveying engineer has shown best skills in finding the way to
the basic parameters for an economic acquisition of geometrical data
with acceptable information quality. In two areas of activity, where
the experience in proper handling geometrical data is essential, the
surveying engineer can contribute to the solution. These are the
design of suitable data models for the task described before, and the
data acquisition task for geometrical data, where not only the actual
measurements are considered, but the automated processing of
geometrical information of all types. Both areas will be illustrated
in a more detailed way.
Tasks common to linear objects and facility management cover the
following topics:
- The description of the specific properties
- The data modelling and data presentation
- The problem of a unique spatial reference frame
- The techniques for data acquisition of geometrical and
descriptive data
- The data maintenance and data exchange
- The usage of data and the perspectives of use
Special emphasis has to be given to the management and usage.
Common to facility management and linear objects is the modelling
of geometry objects in a unique spatial reference frame which is
independent of geometrical changes of any reference object. It is
essential to shift intelligence from the data acquisition tools to the
processing part, exploiting redundancy of measurements and applying
powerful adjustment techniques in data processing. In addition,
different levels of generalisation have to be realised in the data
model for geometrical objects which should be based on a common data
pool.
The high demand both for personal mobility and for the ability to
transport goods of all kinds over long distances is characteristic for
our time. It is necessary to dynamically balance traffic flow, to
select the optimal routes for transport to provide drivers with a set
of information services like optimal routes, traffic jams, road
obstacles and to increase the efficiency of our transport system by
integrating it in the best possible way.
A key to all these problems is the information based on the
geometry and topology of linear objects. The goal is approached by
evaluating and documenting the typical representatives of linear
objects with respect to the above mentioned characteristics. A key
role for linear object type problems is the provision of standardised
representations of traffic networks and of service and energy supply
networks. When digital road- and rail maps will be available in a
unique information structure intermodal traffic- and
transport-management will become feasible.
CONTACT
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Lothar Gründig and Dr.-Ing. Frank Gielsdorf
Technical University Berlin
Institute of Geodesy and Geomatics
Sekr. H20
Straße des 17. Juni 135
D-10623 Berlin
GERMANY
Tel. + 49 30 3142 2375
Fax + 49 30 3142 1119
E-mail: gruendig@inge3.bv.tu-berlin.de
23 March 2001
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