01046208

Component

The market for Subsurface Utility Engineering (SUE) in Canada is slowly following its U.S. counterpart. In Ontario, the market for SUE has seen rapid growth especially on large-scale municipal projects. This paper presents the results of a 12-month study that investigated the challenges and opportunities facing SUE in Ontario. The study took an in-depth look at 9 large municipal and highway reconstruction projects that utilized SUE to provide an enhanced depiction of buried utilities. Based on this analysis, a cost model for SUE utilization was proposed that takes into account both tangible and intangible benefits. This model was applied to gauge the expected cost savings due to SUE utilization on these 9 projects. All projects showed a positive return-on-investment (ROI) that ranged from $2.05 to $6.59 for every dollar spent on SUE. Although these ROI figures should not be considered universal, they indicate that with careful scoping of SUE services, project risks can be appropriately reduced at reasonable cost. The paper concludes with a set of lessons learned by various project participants from the SUE experience in Ontario.

01042056

07-0307

English

18p

2007

Transportation Research Board 86th Annual Meeting

CD-ROM

Figures (4) ; References (7) ; Tables (4)

Engineering; Programming (Planning); Project management; Reconstruction; Return on investment; Underground structures

Cost models; Project costs; Subsurface utility engineering

Ontario (Province)

Administration and Management; Bridges and other structures; Design; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; I21: Planning of Transport Infrastructure

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2007 Paper #07-0307

PRP, TRIS, TRB

Feb 8 2007 4:51PM