Staying awake while counting rail sleepers: Challenges and opportunities presented by state-wide infrastructure surveys
Undertaking large infrastructure surveys presents technical and logistic challenges to the client and supplier project teams. These projects are essentially field-based and are often completed over a 1-2 year timefame. Proposal solutions depicted through an RFT months before a contract is signed need to be sufficiently flexible to allow for the inevitable real-world experience that awaits the survey team over the contract period. Over time of course technology can change rapidly and digital cameras are perhaps the simplest example to consider. It follows that a long project will be subject to technical pressure from within and outside the project to take advantage of the latest software and hardware that come to market during the project.
This paper will outline some common considerations applied to large scale infrastructure surveys and offer technical examples particular to rail, road and electricity asset campaigns.