NATIONAL UNDERGROUND ASSET REGISTER
Government Digital Service (GDS, formerly the Geospatial Commission), part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, is building a digital map of underground pipes and cables in England, Wales and Northern Ireland – the National Underground Asset Register (NUAR). NUAR is improving the efficiency and safety of the way we install, maintain, operate and repair our buried infrastructure by providing secure access to data from over 650 public and private sector asset owners, including gas, water, electric and telecommunications companies and local authorities.
NUAR will help those who plan and carry out digging work do their jobs more effectively and safely. This not only improves public services but also people’s lives. This article is based on the November 2024 update published on gov.uk, but there are some updates since then which have been included.
Cables, pipes and sewage under pedestrian walkway during renovation of the infrastructure system.
The NUAR service is currently a minimum viable product (MVP). This means that it is available to a small number of users at eligible organisations who work with us to refine functionality and processes in preparation for operational use.
In April 2023, access to NUAR started to be rolled out to authorised street works contractors working for these asset owners. Data access is granted according to defined use cases and legally enforceable agreements, with all access subject to protective measures.
Data is available from 273 asset owners on the NUAR platform, which represents over 40% of the known asset owner community.
The following year, coverage of the MVP was expanded to Northern Ireland, meaning that it is available to asset owners anywhere in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, who have shared their data, agreed a data ingestion specification (which maps an asset owner’s data model to the NUAR data model) and signed the NUAR data distribution agreement (which permits NUAR to share an asset owner’s data with 3rd parties). The platform includes strong security controls to protect data while allowing appropriate role-based access.
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The main enhancements of the NUAR platform over the last 12 months have been:
- Improvements in platform performance, increased capacity for the number of total and concurrent users, better management of user and organisation information and the development of flexible reporting options.
- An ‘isolated view’ that allows a single asset owner’s data to be viewed in isolation, including any annotations and dimensions provided and using industry-standard colours and symbols – this feature is also available for PDF Work Pack exports, with a ‘page per asset owner’ option.
- The introduction of the first iteration of the ‘observations’ tool, allowing general notes and observations to be fed back at a point location for the benefit of other users.
- The ability for asset owners to attach ‘enhanced measures’ to them, such as additional guidance or contact/permission requirements.
Future development includes features to notify asset owners of searches near their assets, as well as general enhancements to performance and the display of data in the platform and in PDF work packs.
This includes users from the 267 asset owners as well as 83 supply chain organisations who are registered and using the platform.
Data is available from 273 asset owners on the NUAR platform, which represents over 40% of the known asset owner community. Approximately a further 200 asset owners have signed agreements to work with GDS to have their data available via the service. This represents around 30% of the known asset owner community.
The NUAR MVP has over 3,000 users who are trialling the system alongside existing processes for the purposes of providing valuable feedback to improve the service, as well as preparing to use it operationally when the service moves to public beta. This includes users from the 267 asset owners as well as 83 supply chain organisations who are registered and using the platform.
Many of these organisations are Tier 1 contractors (the largest street works companies) and through this engagement, valuable insight is being gained on rolling out the service to this important user group. The platform’s user satisfaction rate is 8.4 (out of 10) and it has a net promoter score of 9.2, indicating a high level of satisfaction with the service by those who are currently permitted to access it.
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The NUAR data model defines how the data describing the assets and sites in the platform is structured. Having a standardised data model provides for the first time a framework for reporting on elements of data quality, such as completeness, consistency of representation and availability of metadata, in a consistent manner across different organisations, sectors and geographies.
This will, in future, provide asset owners and third parties with the opportunity to create datasets that are directly compliant with NUAR. The data model has been published to help advance this across the sector and whilst asset owners are encouraged to adopt the NUAR data model for the submission of their data to NUAR, processes for the transformation of data for use in NUAR will be continuing as they are for the foreseeable future.
The NUAR data model is the first implementation of MUDDI – the new international data model for underground assets, developed by the Open Geospatial Consortium with support from the NUAR programme and is truly world leading. It has been designed explicitly to accommodate future developments in data capture technologies and practices.
In response to the 2022 public consultation, most respondents indicated that they believed legislative reform was necessary to ensure workers have access to all the data they need through NUAR. While many asset owners have voluntarily shared their data, it has become clear that some will not do so promptly without legislation.
The proposed measures will require asset owners to share their data digitally through NUAR, instead of responding to individual requests.
To make NUAR fully operational, comprehensive and sustainable, changes to the legislative framework for underground asset data are required. This involves amendments to primary legislation, which sets a high-level framework and secondary legislation, which provides further details. These amendments will capitalise on advancements in data and technology since the original legislation was enacted over 30 years ago to streamline asset data sharing and improve efficiency.
After an initial setback when the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill fell due to the general election and subsequent dissolution of Parliament on 30 May 2024, new measures were introduced on 23 October 2024 as part of the Data (Use and Access) Bill. This bill establishes a new legal framework that will put the National Underground Asset Register on a statutory footing for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The proposed measures will require asset owners to share their data digitally through NUAR, instead of responding to individual requests. This will provide planners and excavators with immediate, standardised and comprehensive access to the data they need to work safely and efficiently. The measures will also enable NUAR to establish a charging model that enables NUAR to recover costs from asset owners, allowing the service to run sustainably without further government funding.
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NUAR MVP in action.
While primary legislation is being debated in Parliament, its implementation is being considered through secondary legislation and associated guidance. In-person focus groups were held throughout November and December 2024 to discuss this implementation. The Data (Use and Access) Bill has now moved from the House of Lords to the House of Commons and continues to progress through the legislative process.
Ordnance Survey has been appointed to operate the NUAR service on a cost recovery basis. This is because of its expertise as Great Britian’s National Mapping Agency, a trusted national source of geospatial data, which is seen as critical for the secure future operation of the service. In addition, Ordnance Survey has been involved with NUAR from the early pilot stages in 2019 and understands the intent and practical reality of the platform.
This means Ordnance Survey will run day-to-day aspects of the service and GDS will retain policy oversight.
This means Ordnance Survey will run day-to-day aspects of the service and GDS will retain policy oversight. Stakeholders and early adopters of NUAR do not need to make any changes to the way they access or use NUAR. GDS will lead on the development of legislation and ensuring that NUAR is strategically placed to deliver the maximum benefits. The transition of elements of the NUAR service to Ordnance Survey is already well underway at the time of writing and is due to complete in the coming months.
Plans are in place for NUAR to progress to public beta in spring of this year. Once in public beta, eligible asset owners and authorised street works contractors working on behalf of these asset owners will be invited to increase the number of users from their organisation (and their supply chain) on the platform. Eligible organisations will also be able to begin replacing their existing means of accessing asset data with NUAR as part of day-today business practices, enabling greater integration with their internal safe working practices.
Note that ‘public beta’ refers to the phase in Agile methodology where a product moves from a testing and feedback state (private beta), to being accessed for use by those who need it (public beta) while still being improved in line with user feedback. NUAR is currently planned to remain accessible only to those asset owners who have shared their data, agreed a data ingestion specification (which maps an asset owner’s data model to the NUAR data model) and signed the NUAR data distribution agreement (which permits NUAR to share an asset owner’s data with third parties) and authorised street works contractors working on their behalf as part of the move to public beta.
NUAR currently provides a free data transformation service. This service takes data, which has been provided by asset owners and transforms it into a standardised format that can be hosted on the NUAR platform. GDS has decided to continue to provide the existing data transformation service free of charge for the foreseeable future.
Over the coming months GDS will work with partners across the private sector to develop a mature network of data transformation providers. This will ensure that the asset owner community has a cost-effective solution to fulfil any potential future obligations to share their asset data in a prescribed digital form and manner.
In November 2023, GDS launched a discovery project to explore the potential to deliver additional value through NUAR, while still respecting intellectual property, commercial and security requirements. In August 2024, an update on the progress of this project was published – over 200 individuals from nearly 150 different organisations participated.
This included seven in-person workshops and an online event, with representation from across the UK and beyond, covering a wide range of industries in both the private and public sectors. This project identified a number of potential opportunities. These include:
- Making NUAR data available to other user groups for safe digging purposes (e.g. surveyors, landowners, members of the public).
- Making NUAR data available to support other use cases (e.g. electric vehicle charge point rollout, flood risk planning, emergency response, conveyancing, property development, etc).
- Exploring whether the use cases could be met via NUAR data being accessed via API (application programming interface) or intermediaries.
Following this extensive, open and fruitful period of stakeholder engagement the discovery project has now concluded and we are in the process of considering the evidence gathered – which includes constraints and risks. It’s envisaged that opportunities will be taken forward should they be technically feasible, of value and in the public interest (i.e. creating significant economic and/or social value), taking into consideration the views of stakeholders including the asset owner and national security communities.
The challenges NUAR aims to address are not novel to the UK, similar challenges are faced by international partners. NUAR has benefited from insights shared by the international asset management and safe dig community, particularly Scotland’s VAULT service and the work of KLIP (Kabel en Leiding Informatie Portaal – cable and pipeline information portal) in Flanders and KLIC (Kabels en Leidingen Informatie Centrum – cables and pipelines information centre) in the Netherlands.
There has been substantial interest in the development of NUAR from other national, regional and municipal governments who are, or are considering, developing their own equivalent service. We have collaborated closely with international counterparts to share the knowledge and technology that has been developed in building NUAR, particularly with Ontario (Canada), with whom a memorandum of understanding was signed and Wellington (New Zealand), amongst others.
To further support this international collaborative effort to improve subsurface data management, GDS will be hosting an international Digital Subsurface Symposium in March 2025 in Newcastle upon Tyne, which will bring together government stakeholders from across the globe to share international best practices.