An international crime syndicate stealing rare and valuable covers to sell to the highest bidder? A conspiracy to make bicycle lanes as unsafe as possible? Aliens?
While infrequent, manholes do go missing. Common reasons include: Oversight
The orchestration of urban development and renewal is complex, and as authorities, professional services, and contractors push forward with ambitious timelines, things will fall through the cracks. A manhole might be temporarily removed to facilitate works, and replacement was never arranged; Or road crews might accidentally pave over an access point that is difficult to see normally. Wear and Tear
With large volumes of traffic passing through, manholes on roads will wear away quickly, sinking just enough or their colour fading such that they “disappear” from notice. When the road is resurfaced, these manholes get covered as well and are forgotten until someone needs to use them. Overgrowth
Vegetation may simply grow over manholes in less accessible areas, or where maintenance has fallen behind. With the passage of time, soil and material simply accumulate and change the natural level of the area, with none the wiser.
Locating these missing manholes, especially in an urban environment, is extremely challenging. Land boundaries may have moved, new buildings or fixtures placed overhead, and maps of the underground are indicative at best. Digging up the entire area is also ill-advised, requiring too much work and unduly disrupting local businesses and communities.
HSC and GeoPulse offers an effective solution to this quandary. By blending industry staples such as electromagnetic locating with more advanced technologies including multi-channel ground penetrating radar, we can non-invasively and expediently locate manholes lost in the ground. A single, targeted, dig later, and we will have found the missing article.
Rather than dig aimlessly, HSC’s mapping unit saves us time and resources through deploying an advance team of specialists to survey the field, seeing the unseen and identifying potential hotspots where errant utilities may be. Armed with this actionable information, project teams re-focus on the more critical components of their timelines and deliver faster, better, results to clients.
Philippines