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Project Goal
The goal of this project was to develop an application that fully integrates current GIS technology with existing business processes. The purpose was to improve upon El Paso’s ability to monitor and report encroachments, erosion and new structures along its 50,000+ miles of transmission pipelines in the U.S. The idea was to modernize the manual paper form reporting performed by the pilots and observers who fly our pipelines monthly. It was also designed to reduce the monthly compilation of these manual records into spreadsheets and then distribute the reports to the appropriate operating area offices along our pipelines for field verification and response.
Another goal of this application was the retention of historical records to document the completion of aerial patrol for regulatory compliance on a continuous basis. An important factor was the use of GPS and digital camera components with a computer without impacting the pilot’s or observer’s safe operation of the aircraft, either fixed-wing or helicopter. The idea was to use existing GIS technology and map layers to emulate on the screen what the pilots would see flying along the right-of-way at approximately 200 feet above the ground and at 120 mph.
Business Problem Solved
The original business problem was to find a way to automate the area reporting functionality by incorporating database technology. This would significantly reduce the manual processing of the paper forms submitted by each observer once his report area was completed. This application reduces the post-processing time from a couple of weeks to an hour or less. But we wanted to look beyond the simple reporting functionality by automating the actual observation and data input process.
This required identifying the proper hardware and software from which to develop the application without interfering with the pilot’s performance. Working closely with the pilots and observers we clearly identified their requirements, restrictions, and processes. The main objective was to track the plane’s route and verify that all pipelines were observed for leaks, erosion, new structure construction, and encroachments along our ROWs. This solved the DOT’s requirements of documenting the flying of pipelines at least monthly.
In order to improve upon the manual process our team worked closely with ESRI to develop an ArcView-based solution to capture GPS coordinates, not only of the plane’s track and date of flight, but to capture the observation’s coordinates as well. The observation’s digital photo and the GPS point was automatically captured as an attribute field within the database record and attached to the appropriate observation. A buffer layer of operating area polygons determines the proper report area as an attribute of the record. The observer would input attributes such as observation type, priority (criticality), and other pertinent information from tablet PC-friendly pick boxes.
When the reports are generated each observation has an accompanying photo, coordinates, tabular description, and PDF map of the immediate area to use in the field to identify the physical location. The map is a very useful tool for the field personnel to quickly identify how to drive to the location for response.
Technology Implemented
El Paso Corporation utilizes ESRI’s ArcSDE and SQL Server to maintain its mapping and land base layers. Prior to each area’s flight the pilot/observer downloads the necessary land base, pipeline centerline, existing structures, encroachments and recent observations to a tablet PC running ArcView. The tablet used is a Fujitsu tablet selected for its transflective screen which has a low-to-no glare feature. A Garmin GPS unit is attached to the tablet and uses ESRI’s GPS Extension to capture the plane’s position during flight and the coordinates of the observation. A digital camera is attached and linked to the tablet PC to capture single or multiple photos of the observation which become an attribute of the data record.
The initial scope and design of the project was developed by the El Paso project team working closely with our pilots to ensure it met their requirements in the real world. The development of the ArcView, GPS and digital photo integration was done in conjunction with ESRI’s Implementation Services personnel headed by Craig Morgan as project manager. The testing in the field was performed by team members and the pilots/observers under actual flight conditions to simulate actual aerial patrol conditions.
The database requirements and report functionality was developed in conjunction with El Paso personnel from Mapping & GIS Services, Operations, IT, and operating area office personnel. This was developed to automate and improve the reporting capabilities while significantly reducing the amount of time to process and generate the reports. The idea was to automate the current process with new technology rather than radically changing the process used by the field operating personnel.
Development Team Biography
El Paso Corporation:
Walter Kronenberger, Administrator of Mapping & GIS Services/Engineering Systems
Buddy Nagel, Senior Engineering Systems Analyst, Mapping & GIS Services
Rick Potter, IT Principal Analyst, Operations & Engineering Computer Services
Brian Gao, Contractor, Operations & Engineering Computer Services
Robert Morales, Business Process Senior Analyst, DOT Compliance Services
ESRI:
ESRI Implementation Services
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