Much of our work at UDC is centered on assisting our clients to build the right solution for how they do work helping them be more efficient and effective. Part of the process to determine that right fit solution can include a pilot project. Our Pipeline Centerline project with Southern Company is one such example.
Piloting a Better Understanding
UDC worked with Southern Company Gas to develop a pilot process that helped them to better understand the requirements needed to create new pipeline centerlines for their transmission data based on GPS points. We were able to show them what worked and what didn’t to drive the evolution of their workflow and define the best fitting solution.
Project Background
Based in Atlanta, Southern Company Gas maintains 73,000 miles of main pipeline and 2,400 miles of transmission pipelines. The utility’s current pipeline centerline analysis, performed in GIS, utilizes a 40’ buffer to account for spatial inaccuracies.
Research uncovered areas where pipeline was off by more than 40’ within the GIS from field survey data. Historically, GIS locations were based on static as-built drawings and alignment sheets.
Recent new transmission construction projects collected digital GPS points. The company also conducted a centerline survey project that used locating equipment to mark lines every 10’, captured sub-centimeter accuracy GPS points every 40’ and collected visible pipeline assets and appurtenances within 50’ of pipeline.
Southern Company wanted a to align pipeline centerlines with these more accurate GPS locations. Before determining if there was a viable out-of-the-box solution or even building a new solution, they would first need to define a workflow process and determine best practices to achieve their goals of increased spatial accuracy of their GIS and improved spatial analysis.
Project Scope
Southern Company looked to UDC to find the answers to their workflow questions. The UDC team helped define the new centerline creation workflow process.
Update Station/Site Boundaries – Station/site boundaries that match (or closely approximate) real-world positions.
Create Centerline – Generate a line that connects all GPS points.
Identify Break Point – Define point at which station fence crosses pipe.
Conflate Centerline – Create new target centerline geometry to align with GPS points.
Update Event Features – Update events and their derived features to correspond with new centerline geometry and preserve measures from the Pipeline Feature List (PFL).
Reposition Schematic Features – Station pipe features to be updated to fit within revised station boundaries and connect to realigned pipelines.
We then identified process challenges and looked at various options for addressing those challenges citing pros and cons for each.
UDC worked through several options for completing the steps within the centerline creation workflow. Pros and cons of each option were cited so that educated and informed decisions could be made as to the best approach. The above graphic depicts 2 different scenarios devised for generating the path of the new centerline, once the GPS points were imported, to see which one was better for conflating the data to.
Lessons Learned / Pilot Benefits
This detailed pilot project investigation helped Southern Company better understand their overall pipeline centerline to GPS alignment solution. The pilot brought to light how the centerlines might be created, what problems the solution needed to address to meet the utility’s desired level of accuracy and what efficiencies might be gained (or potentially lost) depending on the final process used.
Southern Company is now armed with the information they needed to make an informed decision on their centerline solution and solution budget.
View Our Presentation…
To learn more about this project and the centerline process development, we invite you to view our GeoConX presentation Pipeline Centerline Re-Alignment to GPS Points with Southern Company.