Author: Carrie Cousins

If you use mowing contractors, you may be familiar with the incremental “bump” in acres/prices that happens as they spend more time, labor, and resources to fulfill their mowing duties. That’s because often contractors accidentally begin mowing more and more areas. This scope creep is unintentional; sometimes, it’s just a normal byproduct of the job and it happens more frequently when there’s a lack of clear acreage guidelines. 

To help contractors stay on track it’s important to regularly assess your mowing acreage. It may seem like a small detail but being clear about how much acreage you’re responsible to mow can save you millions.  

How PILLAR Calculates & Classifies Mowable Area 

PILLAR specializes in providing rapid and accurate data collection and assessment so you always have the most up-to-date information about your transportation assets.  

When you work with us, you’ll benefit from Mobile LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), a powerful mapping method. Mobile LiDAR uses laser scanning to accurately identify roadway assets and related infrastructure at highway speeds. Typically, LiDAR captures data for hundreds of miles of right-of-way a day, making it the ideal solution for use in asset management, geospatial (GIS), and surveying and mapping. Plus, our mobile LiDAR service includes a fully automatic feature extraction system that saves up to 10-fold the time and cost of traditional “point and click” semi-automatic extraction methods.  

With PILLAR, it’s easy to regularly assess your mowing acreage so you can keep your organization on track. 

PILLAR Goes the Extra Mile So You Don’t Have To 

We don’t stop at data collection and extraction. Our services also include an assessment of the terrain you’re responsible to maintain so you can know with certainty:  

1. the types of equipment you need.  

2. the time and frequency required to maintain your acreage.  

The information we gather helps us configure the most efficient mowing patterns for full mows or partial mows. We also leverage our knowledge of stormwater regulations to determine if you can earn environmental stipends for mowing less frequently. 

After all the data is collected, we will work with your geospatial system of choice to integrate and normalize your mowing data. The resulting enhanced database keeps your mowing contractors informed with complete and interconnected information. 

Contact PILLAR 

The PILLAR team has more than 100 years of combined experience working with and for municipalities and departments of transportation. Our clients trust our cutting-edge methods and results. Learn how we can help you avoid mowing scope creep to save time and money. Contact us today. 

As an asset manager, you know how hard it can be to stay in front of potential emergencies. Asset management is a complex, ever-changing landscape and part of the job involves responding to unforeseen events.

However, many asset managers report that 80% of their job is dealing with crisis and only 20% is devoted to planning. With the right support, it’s possible to flip that ratio so you spend less time and money reacting to crisis. Taking a proactive approach to your asset management makes a huge impact on team morale, stress levels, and your bottom line.

How Reactive Ditch Cleaning Hurts Business Outcomes

Most people overlook the important role ditches play in keeping roads safe and usable. Until, that is, a storm rolls in and the ditch is clogged or blocked. Roads (and even homes) can become rapidly flooded, making them impassible and creating an emergency.

Emergencies like this can happen at any time of day or night regardless of whether you have enough staff, equipment, and time available. Gathering your resources and reacting in a timely fashion can be exhausting and expensive. When you’re stuck reacting to emergencies, costs can easily skyrocket. Expenses can include:

• Labor costs in the form of wages and benefits for the crew members who work on the emergency mobilization.
• Equipment costs such as renting or deploying any necessary equipment like excavators, dump trucks, or bulldozers.
• Transportation costs include transporting the crew and equipment to the job site.
• Overtime pay can be a factor if the emergency mobilization requires work outside of normal business hours.
• Permits and fees might be required to carry out the emergency mobilization.
• Material costs can include any materials needed for the job such as sand, gravel, or concrete.

How Proactive Ditch Cleaning Improves Business Outcomes

Contrast this with a thorough assessment and management plan created specifically for the ditches in your service area. Instead of mobilizing crew and equipment after a clogged ditch becomes a problem, generate a list of clogged or at risk ditches during regular inspection. Then, schedule crews to clean them in order of severity during regular hours during good weather.

This proactive, planned approach will save you time and money. You’ll find that you backlog less tasks, avoid unplanned expenses related to crisis management, and create a culture of stability for your team.

Utilize Pillar’s CAPE Method for Maximum Results

Pillar specializes in data collection, assessment, planning and execution through our proven CAPE method. With Pillar on your side, you can have powerful data to create a systematic planning and management program, be intentional about your asset management, and take control.

Stay in front of potential emergencies with solid planning and execution. Book a discovery meeting with PILLAR to learn more about how we can help you develop a systematic solution for your transportation infrastructure.

If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.

Beware of any proposal that doesn’t spell out target accuracy requirement details and is coupled with a lower price. You may be left with inaccurate data that will cost you much more down the road, opening you up to costly change orders. A responsive and responsible bidder will always clearly spell out how they plan to meet target accuracy requirements so you can make an informed decision.

Many bidders will try to confuse proposal reviewers and prey on their lack of technical training. They take advantage of reviewers who aren’t familiar with the difference between RTK/PPK correction or absolute accuracy and relative accuracy. By using a lot of buzzwords and citing equipment accuracy tolerances, they hope to convince you that a surveyor, validation/check, and control points aren’t necessary to prove accuracy. You may read the proposal and believe that utilizing a scanning vehicle equipped with an IMU, GNSS, wheel encoders and a DMI to prevent drift and self-correct will be within accuracy requirements.

Sometimes you want the data accurate down to the inch and sometimes positioning within a few feet is acceptable enough for crews to locate an object in the field. Today’s mobile LiDAR equipment is powerful and allows us to do amazing things when it comes to location and accuracy. However, any specified accuracy still needs to be checked or verified.

How to Think About Point Cloud Accuracy

Imagine you walk into a dark warehouse (Point A) and need to get to a door on the other side (Point B). If the lights were on, this would be a simple task. You can see where you’re going and walk toward the door. With the lights out, the task becomes more complicated. You’ll likely unintentionally drift off course between Point A and Point B. When you get to the other side, you’d be unable to report how straight your path was let alone if you are even at the door, until you turn on the lights and adjust your position to the door.

Now imagine you’re in the same dark warehouse, but now you have familiar objects like a table, chair, or desk you can tap as you pass by. You’re much likelier to find the door by checking your position as you go. This method allows you to correct your course along the way and ensures that you actually are where you think you are.

Now imagine you’re in the dark warehouse with a dusty floor and your familiar objects, but also notches in the floor every so often marking the path. You get to the other end, turn on the lights and can see the path you took. The notches on the floor allow you to measure the distance between your footprints and your target path to check your accuracy and validate how close you were to following the path. Without those notches in the floor, you can’t validate your accuracy because you have nothing to measure against to verify or validate specified tolerances.

This is why it is necessary to tie mobile LiDAR scans to surveyed control points when a target accuracy is specified. Control points make it possible to correct positioning and adjust the recorded course to match the real-world course, just as tapping a known object as you walk through the darkened warehouse allows you to adjust your trajectory to the door. Furthermore, validation points allow you to verify that your data falls within the specified accuracy threshold. Without validation, asserting that the data is accurate would be impossible.

Applying surveyed control and validation points to your mobile LiDAR data is like walking across the darkened warehouse, with your path lit by tiny lights that guide your way. You may not be able to see your entire environment, but you have enough reliable information to arrive at your goal.

Poor GNSS Signal and Accuracy Challenges

Absolute Accuracy vs. Relative Accuracy are must-know terms for anyone evaluating an RFP.

• Absolute accuracy refers to whether or not objects in the point cloud fall near their actual location in the real world. This is sometimes referred to as “accuracy.”
• Relative accuracy refers to whether or not objects within the same point cloud lie in true positions relative to one another and if the object occupies the same location in multiple passes. This is sometimes referred to as “precision.”

Ideally, data should be both accurate and precise. To achieve this, professionals often use RTK (real-time kinematic) and PPK (post-processed kinematic) technologies to correct raw GPS data and achieve centimeter-level positional accuracy. However, this technology is contingent on a strong signal at the site from one or more GNSS constellations, as this raw satellite data forms the basis of your data corrections.

Professionals commonly utilize data from base station networks like CORS (Continuously Operating Reference Stations), operated by NOAA, or from subscription base station networks to perform RTK/PPK corrections. These networks are comprised of base stations situated atop points of known position and/or elevation. These base stations monitor GNSS signals from various constellations to:

1. determine how inaccurate the GNSS calculated position is and
2. determine an appropriate correction.

This correction can then be applied to your mobile LiDAR trajectory within a reasonable distance of the base station. Thus, an RTK/PPK corrected position will be more accurate than the raw GNSS calculated position. However, these corrections only apply to data received from the GNSS satellite constellations. They offer no benefit in situations where the GNSS signal is significantly blocked, as is the case in heavy canopy, urban canyons, or any area with a significant portion of the sky obscured.

It should be noted that, with respect to mobile LiDAR scans, these corrections alone are not sufficient to claim any particular accuracy. Additional steps are therefore necessary in order to validate and report the accuracy of the resulting point cloud.

Trajectory, Control, and Validation of Your Point Cloud Data

The three warehouse examples emphasize the three phases of point cloud data location and accuracy that are easy to confuse.

1. PPK/RTK corrections from base station data (i.e. CORS). This phase helps correct errors in the position based on the GNSS signal and are provided by base stations operated from known locations. These stations don’t actually have to be within the survey area, just within a reasonable distance (usually a couple dozen kilometers, though this is dependent on terrain and other field conditions). This correlates to the first warehouse example where you need to correct errors in your overall path as a whole (trajectory).
2. Control Points. These are surveyed points within the data collection area that are visible in the data and can thus be used to anchor the data to a known datum. In other words, they are used to adjust the data to its correct real-world position. Control points will help correct errors arising from the local environment or the mobile LiDAR scanning unit itself. This correlates to the second warehouse example where you are touching objects as you move through the warehouse. It’s useful in cases where you need to correct errors from the ground within the bigger picture and tie it to the ground.
3. Check Points. These are surveyed points within the data collection area that are visible in the data, but they are not used to adjust the data, only to measure the offset of the location of the data to its real-world position. Check points are for reporting accuracy and verifying the data. This correlates to the third warehouse example where you have notches in the floor (i.e., a known real-world position) and are comparing them against the footprints on the dusty floor tracking your location (point cloud position). This validates that all remaining errors are within acceptable limits.

How does this all work and interrelate? #1 is frequently used on its own if there is no accuracy requirement. If there is an accuracy requirement, the only way to prove that the requirement has been met is with #3. However, there’s a good chance that in areas of poor GNSS reception (heavy tree canopy or blocking mountain faces), #1 will not be sufficient to meet accuracy requirements, so #2 would need to be used in those areas as well. It wouldn’t ever make sense to use #2 without #3, because #2 takes a lot of effort and you would certainly want to prove that #2 has worked. An important note, no single point should ever be used as both #2 and #3.

Work with a Responsive and Responsible Bidder

Some bidders may assert that you don’t need to set control points or validation points and can save lots of money. The problem is that by doing this, they aren’t responding to your accuracy requirements and therefore are not a responsive and responsible bidder. No accuracy can be demonstrated without a comparison to known, real-world positions (validation points).

A solid proposal will tell you the number of validation points it will take to verify that your data meets accuracy and how and where these points—and any necessary control points—will be established.

PILLAR prides itself on our commitment to quality and accuracy. We utilize cutting-edge technology, including mobile LiDAR, alongside over a century’s worth of combined expertise to be a partner you can rely on. Contact PILLAR today to learn more about how we can assist you with your next project.

For the third straight year in a row, DOTs are facing a shortage of snowplow drivers. A survey by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials shows that 84% of respondents reported higher to much higher snowplow operator vacancies than normal. 

Snowplows are a critical component of keeping the roadways clear during winter storms. Without the proper number of qualified drivers, municipalities will face difficult decisions. They may call upon their management staff to fill the gaps to provide citizens with services they rely on.

Short-Term Strategies to Do More with Less

When DOTs are forced to put managers and supervisors with CDL driver credentials in snowplows, their regular responsibilities such as planning and other tasks become rapidly backlogged and important tasks get dropped. In other words, this short-term solution creates long-term problems. Pillar can help keep the department on track and moving forward through its staff augmentation services. Pillar works with you to optimize snow management plans and implement efficiencies to take control of snow event response even if you have fewer trucks on the road by rearranging snow routes and developing efficient response plans that work with the resources you have. This same approach can also be used for other tasks requiring CDL drivers.

Long-Term Strategies to Address the CDL Driver Shortage

Navigating from snow event to snow event in crisis mode due to a lack of CDL drivers is stressful and inefficient. And, let’s face it, that stress extends throughout the year with any task that requires CDL drivers. There’s a longer-term strategy to deal with the CDL driver shortage that puts you in control. Our staff helps fill management and planning shortages on demand and can get to work immediately to sustain productivity until the crisis has passed. Through Pillar’s staff augmentation services DOTs have access to experienced maintenance professionals that can provide:

• Crew and contractor monitoring and inspecting
• Supplement work and equipment forces
• Specialized expertise
• Quick execution of backlogged tasks

Take Control Today. Contact PILLAR.

Pillar stands ready at a moment’s notice to support your team through the remainder of this season’s winter event. With spring in sight, now is the time to start planning for next year’s winter season.  Let us help you take charge of your snow program despite driver shortages by optimizing your plan and creating efficiencies.  Contact us today.

Apple fully embraced LiDAR technology when they released the iPhone 12 Pro that came equipped with a LiDAR scanner, giving users the ability to engage with augmented and virtual reality technologies more easily.  

With LiDAR now available to any smartphone user, you may wonder if iPhones can be used for transportation asset collection. In short, the answer is no. Read on to find out why.

What is LiDAR technology?

LiDAR stands for light detection and ranging. It works by pinging lasers off objects and calculating how long it took for the light of the laser to reflect from the object. The collected data is then used to create 3D maps. LiDAR was first used in the 1960s when laser scanners were mounted to airplanes and gained popularity in the 1980s for use in GPS technology. [1]

In the world of smartphones, LiDAR enabled devices allow users to create 3D renderings of their environment at distances up to 5 meters. Typical applications for this technology include more accurate photos, improved motion capture, and—most importantly—augmented and virtual reality experiences at home or day-to-day environments.

LiDAR and Transportation Asset Management

The Transportation Asset Management industry regularly uses LiDAR technology to maintain the integrity of transportation assets. It’s a critical tool for keeping an up-to-date understanding of the condition of roads, bridges, tunnels, rails, and more. But the process of collecting and using that data extends far beyond a single smartphone camera designed to collect data at walking speed. Although there may be some specialty use that can come from smartphones, this is limited due to the lack of large-scale data that is able to be collected.

At PILLAR, our imagery scanning technology powers data collection at highway speeds to give you an impressive and detailed understanding at the street level. Our technology includes:

• 360-degree spherical
• 6 – 5MP cameras – 30MP
• Drone aerial collection
• Faster data collection: laser collection at posted speed limits enables the ability to scale.
• Street-level imagery: snapshots of roadways during data collection.
• Global view of infrastructure assets

Not only that, but we are the only company to offer a true, fully automated feature extraction solution by pairing our mobile LiDAR with AFES^TM to process the data we collect.  Without AFES^TM you could spend hours formatting your data, scrolling through overlapping photos, and linking assets. When you work with PILLAR, you can have reliable, immediately usable data so you can act and plan for the future.

Invest in Professional LiDAR

The stakes are high when it comes to having accurate data because deteriorating assets can lead to injury and death. When accuracy is paramount, using LiDAR-enabled smartphones to capture asset data isn’t a realistic way to get the job done. These cameras can only capture environments up to 5 meters away and at walking speed. The user must manually collect a 360 view. Contrast that with PILLAR’s six 360-degree cameras that can collect images at highway speeds.

In addition, asset management requires more than just data collection, you need data you can use. Between processing time, feature extraction, and access to reliable data, it’s much more cost effective to invest in a LiDAR professional.

Contact Us

At PILLAR, our multidisciplined professionals have decades of experience to keep your assets in a state of good repair. From boots on the ground to points in the cloud, PILLAR has you covered. Contact us to discuss your needs and questions.

[1] https://www.britannica.com/technology/lidar