M6 Topographical Surveys - Smart Motorways M6 Junctions 13-15 Project

At the start of the Smart Motorway project JAJV (Jacobs Atkins JV), the design partner, received a basic point cloud survey. Point cloud surveys are often used to generate detailed design of infrastructure and road network projects. However, there are some limitations with point cloud data including accuracy, so it was agreed that a Topographical Survey would be needed to deliver a more accurate design plan. This would capture any missing data from the hard shoulder to the highways boundary.

Being unable to penetrate vegetation, the original point cloud survey often had gaps in data of up to 70m, with significant elevation changes and hidden structures, so it was impossible to create a detailed design of anything beyond the hard shoulder. There were also steps in the original scan data resulting from potential errors in registration leading to a lack of confidence in its use.

In addition, there were also constraints on traffic management; due to the length of the project it was not possible to use Varioguard or close lanes on a regular basis.  Furthermore, much of the survey data required was within live lanes or central reservations therefore making it difficult to capture using a cloud point survey.