The successful completion of the Geospatial Commission National Underground Assets Register (NUAR) twelve month pilot phase that ended in April 2020 has moved the project further towards the roll out of a national programme.

Launched in April 2019, the Commission’s initial analysis suggests that more accessible and better quality location data in infrastructure and construction could be worth over £4 billion per year. The Commission launched its National Underground Assets Register in 2019 with the aim of realising some of this value through better mapping underground assets - the NUAR pilot has provided insight and evidence to inform an approach for how a national programme could be rolled out.

Commenting on the pilots, Thalia Baldwin, Director of the Geospatial Commission, said:

“Our National Underground Assets Register pilots demonstrate the benefits of good geospatial data within the construction and infrastructure industries to improve safety and drive efficiencies. Accidental strikes on underground assets are estimated to cost the sector £1.2bn a year. It is the first time that the UK government has brought major utility companies and Local Authorities together to share data through a single data platform for safe digging and I am pleased our pilots have successfully proved the value of this approach.”

Huge potential for location data to improve the way that national infrastructure is planned, built and managed

There is huge potential for location data to improve the way that national infrastructure is planned, built and managed. Every construction and infrastructure project has to source information on buried utility assets such as cables, pipes, sewers and ducts when preparing ground investigation and excavation work. Multiple different organisations have to be contacted with their data delivered in varied formats, scales, quality, and on different timelines.

The pilots were aimed to design and test what a mapping platform could look like to help asset owners, such as telecommunication, energy and water companies and local authorities securely share their existing underground asset data with authorised users.

The objectives of the pilots included:

• Demonstrate the value of the data exchange platform against the use cases.
• Provide data specifications and standards.
• Test the functionality of the prototype.
• Better understand the costs for the tender and national platform.
• Better understand barriers and pathways to participation.
• Learn about systems models and approach.

Early research identified two suitable areas for launching pilots:

• In London, the Highways Apparatus Data Exchange System (HADES), an early proof of concept, was initiated in 2017
• In the north east of England, the North East Underground Infrastructure Hub (NEUIHub) was created following Northumbrian Water Group’s 2018 Innovation Festival.

Commenting on Northumbrian's participation in the pilot, Heidi Mottram CBE, CEO of Northumbrian Water Group said:

“We are proud to have been involved with the initiative right from its inception at our Innovation Festival in 2018. Very quickly, we knew that we had something special on our hands and thanks to the investment made by the Geospatial Commission and the cooperation by our local authorities and fellow utility companies the project has gone from strength to strength. NUAR will help improve safety for workers, the efficiency of planning and completing jobs and most importantly there will be real, positive, benefits for our customers.”

Commission will continue to quantify economic benefits to help build  evidence base for any future national rollout plans

According to the Commission, “quick wins” from the pilots have proved invaluable - examples include:

• Informal feedback from a planner informed it that the time taken on the creation of a job pack was reduced from 1 hour 30 minutes to just 7 minutes using the NUAR platform.
• Anecdotal evidence from a Civils Manager stated that as a high level estimate they could save up to £1m per year just on streamlining the planning process for obtaining utility plans.

The Commission is planning to continue to quantify the economic benefits to help build the evidence base for any future national rollout plans.

“The benefits of shared digital asset data go well beyond the strike avoidance use case in particular in relation to street management, infrastructure / broadband rollout, network management, local planning and housing delivery,” the Commission says.

The NUAR prototype platform is not a live service: this will be developed as part of a national roll out following an open and competitive tender process.

To ensure a system is designed that is fit for purpose, user research is essential and the Commission will continue to increase engagement with asset owners and local authorities in the north east of England and London. The Commission said it is particularly interested in reaching out to independent network and distribution providers as well as district heating operators to gain a deeper understanding of their data and willingness to participate in the current stage of work.

It intends to elicit feedback on its plans from future users of the platform and will also be conducting pre-market engagement prior to launching a competitive tender.

The Commission is inviting interested stakeholders who would like to be part of its engagement or have any other queries to email it at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .