At a glance: PointMan® by ProStar®, with the help of Point One Navigation’s RTK corrections, is putting highly accurate, real-time utility mapping solutions for locating underground utilities, down to the centimeter, in the palm of your hand. PointMan helps address critical challenges in the utility locating industry, offering significant advancements in efficiency, cost savings, and safety – all available in the cloud and on your smartphone.
The problem: Outdated practices lead to costly damages
The utility industry has historically relied on imprecise and outdated methods for locating buried infrastructure. With over 35 million miles of buried utilities in the United States – compared to only 2.5 million miles of paved roads – damages are a pervasive and unfortunately all-too-common issue. Each year, approximately 500,000 utility strikes occur, resulting in an estimated $60 billion impact to the United States economy.
Traditional methods of avoiding utility damage involve:
- Manual markings: Utility locators use electromagnetic devices to detect lines and then spray paint marks on the ground to indicate their approximate location. These markings are temporary, limited in geospatial accuracy, are often accurate to only one meter on either side due to human error and environmental factors, and often need to be re-marked several times over the lifetime of the asset.
- Lack of geospatial accuracy: Historically, no geospatial data is collected to confirm the accuracy of paint marks. Locators are often paid to mark the relative vicinity of a utility, not to precisely locate, leading to inaccurate markings.
- No centralized data: Utility companies often have inaccurate or non-existent digital records, relying on paper maps that may be decades old. Even when digital, these maps reflect original designs, not “as-built” realities, as contractors often deviate from plans.
- Expensive, complicated hardware: Legacy damage prevention hardware is generally cost-prohibitive and requires specialized expertise to use, often requiring additional peripheral equipment to complete surveys.
- Significant contingency costs: Large construction projects, some exceeding $1 billion, allocate 3-4% of their budget as a contingency for utility strikes, which can amount to tens of millions of dollars on individual projects.
These inefficiencies lead to severe and costly consequences:
- Project delays and cost overruns: Utility strikes cause significant project delays, requiring costly reallocations of labor and machinery.
- Safety hazards: Misidentified utilities pose serious risks, including power outages, gas leaks, injuries, and even fatalities.
- Environmental damage: Utility strikes can lead to releases of hazardous substances, causing environmental harm.
- Legal liabilities: Damages often result in litigation, further increasing costs and reputational damage.
The solution: Precision mapping with PointMan
PointMan leverages modern GNSS corrected location data, cloud storage, and mobile phone technologies to provide a comprehensive solution for precision utility mapping. This system digitally captures, records, and displays the precise location of buried utilities, transforming an industry historically resistant to change.
Key aspects of PointMan’s full-stack solution:
- Centimeter-level accuracy with RTK corrections: PointMan focuses on delivering survey-grade, centimeter-accurate data. This is achieved through integration with high-precision GNSS receivers and relies on RTK (Real-Time Kinematic) corrections provided by Point One Navigation to make GNSS location 100x more accurate.
- Real-time data collection and sharing: Field personnel can capture utility data (location, type, depth, ground cover) on a mobile device, which is then instantly uploaded to the cloud and made accessible to all project stakeholders in real-time. This eliminates the need for manual data interpretation and reduces the time data takes to reach decision-makers.
- Hardware agnostic: PointMan integrates with existing GPS/GNSS and electromagnetic locate equipment from various manufacturers, including Bad Elf, Juniper, Trimble, Leica, Emlid, Radiodetection, Subsite, Vivax-Metrotech, and 3M. This allows users to leverage their current hardware investments.
- Compliance with industry standards: The PointMan solution adheres to ASCE 38-02 (and its upcoming revision ASCE 38-22) for data collection and depiction of existing subsurface utility data, and ASCE 75-22 for recording and exchanging utility infrastructure data.
- Data pedigree: PointMan captures comprehensive metadata from both GNSS receivers and locate devices, creating a “pedigree” for each data point. This includes horizontal and vertical accuracy, precision measures (HDOP & VDOP), geoid corrected elevations, number of satellites in view, GNSS correction type, and receiver type. This pedigree provides a high level of confidence in the accuracy of the survey-grade collected data.
- Automated workflows: PointMan streamlines workflows by allowing users to draw survey-grade lines in the field, eliminating post-processing. It also enables real-time editing and abandonment functions, reducing the need for additional CAD work or redlining.
- Enhanced safety: By providing precise, real-time data, PointMan significantly reduces the likelihood of utility strikes, leading to fewer accidents and a better safety record.
Why the PointMan-Point One integration matters
The combination of PointMan and Point One RTK corrections creates a frictionless, high-accuracy mapping experience that redefines field operations. Users in the field simply tap to activate RTK corrections via the PointMan app and begin capturing data with centimeter accuracy in real-time. This level of precision stands in stark contrast to traditional GPS, where accuracy can be significantly diminished to several meters, making precise utility location nearly impossible.
Crucially, this centimeter accuracy enables reliable ‘stake back’ capabilities. Users can return to a previously recorded point with absolute confidence, precisely re-locating a utility line mapped months or years prior. This eliminates the need for costly re-locates and significantly reduces the risk of striking utilities during subsequent projects.
PointMan serves as the intelligent integrator for Point One Navigation’s True RTK corrections. This means field users only need to configure Point One RTK services once within the PointMan app. From that point, PointMan seamlessly manages the high-precision corrections, making the system hardware-agnostic when choosing a GNSS receiver. This streamlines workflows, drastically reduces setup time, and maximizes the utility of existing equipment.
This strategic integration:
- Eliminates the need for expensive, complex survey-grade GPS hardware
- Reduces training time and accelerates onboarding for new users
- Provides enterprise-grade performance at consumer-level cost
- Drastically lowers project risk and increases safety by reducing subsurface strikes by embedding Point One’s correction directly into the PointMan platform.
- Precision mapping becomes a seamless experience that works “out of the box” for contractors, utilities, and government agencies alike.
Proven impact and case studies
PointMan’s impact on the industry is evident in various real-world applications, demonstrating significant improvements and cost savings:
- Centralized location data: In 2020, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) mandated the use of PointMan for government projects, requiring its use for new utility installations and locating existing utilities. This ensures all collected data is stored in the CDOT database, reducing the need for repeated locates and improving public safety.
- 97% reduction in utility strikes: A comparative study of two infrastructure projects of similar size and duration showed that a project utilizing PointMan experienced only 3 utility strikes compared to 147 in a similar project using legacy methods, resulting in an estimated annual savings of approximately $4.68 million.
- 56,210 hours saved: Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has reported significant utility-engineering savings, with documented benefits exceeding $13 million and 77 months across six pilot projects when using PointMan. This resulted in a cost-benefit ratio of 7.9, demonstrating a substantial return on investment.
- $15,600 a year saved for every employee: KCI Technologies adopted PointMan to improve field sketching and data capture. They reported an increase of 1.5 hours in field productivity per day, leading to a productivity gain of $7,800 over six months for each individual in the field crew. PointMan’s ability to create a reliable field data repository for future project reference also provides significant long-term savings.
- Reduced downtime and reallocation: PointMan’s precision mapping helps prevent project delays by minimizing utility strikes, ensuring projects stay on schedule and within budget.
The future of utility location
The PointMan–Point One partnership positions both companies to lead the next phase of digital infrastructure development. As government regulations tighten and infrastructure funding increases, the demand for accurate, real-time location data will become non-negotiable. PointMan, enhanced by Point One’s RTK service, is poised to become the global standard for precision mapping, an essential platform for enabling smart cities, resilient utilities, and sustainable infrastructure.
Ready to explore how Point One’s RTK corrections can embed centimeter accuracy into your service? Reach out to our team today for a personalized discussion and POC. Contact Sales