EPSRC logo
 Home | GoW Home | Back | Programme | Scheme | Topic | Sector | Theme | Region | Organisation     
 
Details of Grant
 
EPSRC Reference: EP/C014707/1
Title: Mapping the Underworld: Knowledge and Data Integration
Principal Investigator: Professor AG Cohn
Other Investigators:
Dr B Bennett Dr JG Stell
Researcher Co-investigator:
Project Partner:
Kirklees Council National Grid Transco Thames Water Plc
Yorkshire Water Services Ltd
Department: Sch of Computing
Organisation: University of Leeds
Scheme: Standard Research
Starts: 01 July 2005 Ends: 30 June 2009 Value (£): 158,437
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Acoustics Construction Operations and Management
Ground Engineering Information and Knowledge Management
Instrumentation Engineering and Development Pavement Engineering
Urban and Land Management Water Engineering
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
Construction Environment
Transport Systems and Vehicles Water
Related Grants:
Panel History:  
Summary
Every year, in excess of four million holes are dug in the nation's roads to repair leaks, provide connecting services to new premises and to lay new cables and pipes. Although recently installed assets may have been well mapped, location data on older services can be very poor, in some cases even non existent (except perhaps knowing the location of the terminating points). Some of the holes are unnecessary (dug in the wrong place owing to insufficientor wrong data), some cause third party damage to other underground services (or even first party damage!). More importantly, there are also considerable indirect costs owing to disruption on the roads caused by works, waste, and pollution. This project will investigate the construction of a unified database of all the location data from the various various utilities. Constructing such a unified database will be a challenge owing to the current state of the records, which are frequently innacurate, incomplete and sometimes not available in digital form.

Final Report Summary
Every year, in excess of four million holes are dug in the nation's roads to repair leaks, provide connecting services to new premises and to lay new cables and pipes. Although recently installed assets may have been well mapped, location data on older services can be very poor, in some cases even non existent (except perhaps knowing the location of the terminating points). Some of the holes are unnecessary (dug in the wrong place owing to insufficient or erroneous data), some cause third party damage to other underground services (or even first party damage). More importantly, there are also considerable indirect costs owing to disruption on the roads caused by works, waste, and pollution. This project, jointly with the later TSB funded VISTA project, has investigated the construction of a unified database of all the location data from the various various utilities. Jointly, the two projects have now designed a unified global schema and a utility wide semantic thesuarus/ontology, and have researched and implemented techniques for mapping from the individual utility databases to this unified representation. A prototype system has been trialled in three areas of the country, and the Scottish Executive is now in progress of initiating a second phase trial, which, if successful will lead to full implementation sector wide in Scotland. The integrated database also forms a key component in the ongoing follow up Mapping the Underworld 2 project in which data from a multi sensor locating device will be fused and aligned with the expectations from the integrated map.

Further Information:  
Organisation Website: http://www.leeds.ac.uk
Terms and conditions