CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
While considerable progress has been made to address utility issues before a project goes to letting, a substantial knowledge gap still is how to manage utility conflicts during construction. Reports in the literature point to causes of utility issues during construction, but some reports are dated and very few examine utility issues thoroughly or include documented evidence of successful strategies to address those issues. NCHRP Project 15-69, “Utility Conflict Impacts during Highway Construction,” addressed these issues by identifying causes and impacts of utility issues during construction, evaluating the use of utility impact analysis tools, developing functional requirements for a decision support tool, documenting procedures and tools for conducting utility inspections, and documenting best practices and implementation recommendations.
This report documents the research approach and activities completed, functional requirements for a decision support system, prioritized conclusions and implementation recommendations, and suggested research. The report is organized as follows:
- Chapter 1 is this introductory chapter.
- Chapter 2 includes a review of relevant literature.
- Chapter 3 summarizes trends and observations from a practitioner survey.
- Chapter 4 includes lessons learned from three case studies.
- Chapter 5 summarizes the results of an analysis of change orders and claims.
- Chapter 6 describes the use and results of using AI models to classify change order data.
- Chapter 7 includes a discussion of requirements for a decision support tool to process UR change order data.
- Chapter 8 describes procedures and tools to conduct utility inspections.
- Chapter 9 includes conclusions, implementation recommendations, and suggested research.
A companion document, NCHRP Web-Only Document 396: Minimizing Utility Issues During Construction: A Guide, provides suggestions to practitioners on how to minimize utility issues, primarily during construction, highlighting strategies to avoid potential pitfalls during preliminary design and design. Other deliverables include presentation materials describing the research background, approach, findings, and conclusions and an implementation plan.
