Using mobile technology for on-site facilities monitoring
Brent Jones, PE, PLS
Vice President, Malcolm Fuller
Senior Programmer, AM/FM/GIS Services
James W. Sewall Company, 147 Center Street
Old Town, ME 04468
Terence Hickey
Manager of GIS, Colonial Gas Company
40 Market Street, Lowell, MA 01850
Background
Colonial Gas is a local distribution company (LDC) serving 153,000 customers in 24 cities and
towns in the Merrimack Valley of Massachusetts and on Cape Cod. In 1992, Colonial Gas
launched a corporate-wide initiative to automate its facilities data by converting ink-on-mylarbased
maps into georeferenced digital files. To assist in the proposed implementation of an
AM/FM/GIS system, Colonial Gas contracted James W. Sewall Company of Old Town, Maine,
to provide aerial photography, photogrammetric mapping, and data conversion services. During
the next 6 years, Sewall completed digitizing Colonial Gas's existing 1" = 400' map series,
captured new aerial photography with GPS survey control, and compiled 1" = 40' base mapping
of the utility's service area. The 1" = 400' maps allowed for the general placement of gas mains,
valves, road edges, and main information text. The larger-scale 1" = 40' maps displayed
landbase features in greater detail, such as building roof lines and street edges. Using as-built
sketches and other construction documents as references, Colonial added gas facilities, including
mains, services, valves, service account numbers, service descriptors, and service valves and
dimensions to these facilities. Sewall then performed the data conversion.
Produced on a PC-based MicroStation CAD platform, this mapping system was designed for use
by facilities maintenance and construction end users. Although limited by the lack of a database
linked to the graphics, the maps formed the functional basis of many applications within the firm.
The Walkhw Survey
In 1994, Colonial Gas identified the need to streamline the procedures of the walking survey, an
application still dependent upon the use of hard copy maps and paper reports. In compliance with
U.S. Department of Transportation regulation CFR Title 49 ~192.723, Colonial Gas performs
annual flame ionization surveys to detect gas leakage from services and fittings. Carrying a flame
ionization unit (FIU) equipped with sensor nozzle, a company surveyor walks the course of the
gas line, "sniffing" the ground for minute amounts of methane. An inspector, usually from a
third-party contractor, records test results that are delivered to the main office for review. The
regulation states that every service within an LDC'S franchise territory must be surveyed every
five years if catholically protected and every three years if not. At this time approximately 85
percent of Colonial's franchise territories had been digitally compiled. Because the GIS system
was not 100 percent complete, the utility had been surveying on a three-year cycle to meet or
exceed this standard. Colonial will evaluate services on a five-year cycle in some of its towns
after the GIS database is complete.
Within the company's two divisions, two separate methods of conducting these surveys evolved,
both geographic in nature and dependent upon account information from Colonial's mainframe
customer database. The two methods served the ultimate goal of recording histories and
facilitating the repair of discovered leaks; however, inefficiencies existed both in the field and in
the central office.
Insufficient or nonexistent information about the location of service lines in the field often
required that the surveyor conduct an exhaustive sniffer sweep of the general area. What survey
crews needed were accessible maps or as-built plans that clearly indicated the route of the service
line. In addition, survey crews unloaded several hundred pages of paper reports for processing at
the main office on a daily basis. Immediate access to data stored in digital form in a database
would expedite report analysis, survey monitoring, tallying of services with detected leaks, and
the development of repair crew work orders.
Genesis
At the time Colonial Gas launched its technology initiative, entitled Genesis, several new developments
promised to speed the process of facilities data collection and management. The
emergence of such capabilities as automated meter reading (AMR), AM/FM/GIS, distributed
processing, and portable computers was critical to Colonial's decision to automate the walking
survey.
AMR. The use of an automated meter reading system versus a meter reader who physically
visited the site compelled Colonial to create a new method of checking the meter area and
recording findings. More data needed to be captured at the time of the survey, requiring data
fields that did not exist on the then-current survey forms.
AM/FM. The capability to display map views showing services in an area and their stated
activity had promising potential for field use,
Portable Computers. Mobile hardware was becoming more functional; and viewing
software, more readily available. In addition, Colonial Gas intended to replace its Unisys Mapper
mainframe by 1998 with a new system that would record and store survey data. This system
needed to be sufficiently flexible to create an application using one set of data (i.e., Mapper
Account Records) and to migrate the data to its eventual replacement.
Flexible, Configurable Software. With the availability of more powerful software, Colonial
Gas sought end-user friendly, map viewing, data entry, and retrieval tools that could collect data
and then upload them to the Oracle database.
In summary, Colonial Gas decided to exploit new technologies to eliminate the inefficiencies in
the walking survey. First, survey crews in the field would be equipped with small, pen-based
computers with which to fill out their forms electronically. The computers would also store and
display vicinity map data of the services under survey. Completed electronic forms could then be
uploaded onto a database in the office, permitting office personnel to query and examine the
results easily.
