Developing an underground utility occupation index for efficient urban utilities planning

In almost all modern cities, various utility pipelines and cables often form a maze of underground utility network. Mismanagement of underground utility incidents could cause serious consequences including unavailability of services, property damages, and personnel injuries and fatalities. Since one major reason for mismanagement is unsuitable urban utilities planning, it is a challenging task to plan urban utilities in an efficient way. This paper proposes an underground utility occupation index (UUOI), which serves as an indicator of urban utilities development. With the statistical information of existing utilities in the predefined polygons, UUOI provides planning information, including underground space already occupied, and space available for future utilization by analyzing from multiple perspectives: by utility, by zone, by road category (footway and carriageway), and by city district. UUOI supports utility companies and governmental authorities in their decision-making at both the microlevel and macrolevel. At the microlevel, UUOI provides the necessary utility and space information for utility companies to share information in making long-term and short-term development plans to partially avoid conflicts between utilities belonging to different companies and adopt suitable construction methods to minimize damages to existing utilities. At the macrolevel, the UUOI can be used to extrapolate from a small scale to a large scale to facilitate government authorities in urban planning and development. The consolidated UUOI enables the differentiation and prioritization of areas of different levels of utility density and facilitates government authorities in formulating guidelines for future urban development, establishing strategic development areas and issuing permits for underground works. The improved practices of both government authorities and utility companies will also reduce disturbance to the general public. An illustrative example has demonstrated the applicability and usefulness of UUOI.