Detection and risk for digging activities around underground cables and pipelines: implications for spatial data quality

Digging activities are considered the largest cause of damage to underground cables and pipelines. Contractors can reduce the risk through detection, which will cost time and thus money. In the Netherlands, maps are the prime source of information on the location of cables/pipelines and detection time strongly depends on whether maps indicate the presence of cables and pipelines. Poor quality maps can contribute to increased risk or higher risk avoidance costs. The objective of this article is to present a model for calculating the trade-off between detection costs and risk in case of a hit and for calculating implications of over- and incompleteness of maps. The model aims to find the optimal detection time at which the sum of detection cost and risk is at its minimum. A case-study showed that it is possible to parameterise the model with data collected from contractors through a questionnaire. The case-study provides a numerical example of calculation of the trade-off between risk and detection costs and provides an example of calculation of costs of incompleteness. We conclude that the model contributes valuable new insight. However, more and location specific data are needed to enable operational use of the model