NUAR- Next Phase

I attended the NUAR Discovery Day in London yesterday. Firstly, let me say that I'm a big supporter of NUAR and I’d like to congratulate the team for delivering a well-planned and well-executed event yesterday. It was great to hear ideas from all sorts of sectors and see each one expanded upon so effectively.

The Next Phase – the need for discovery.

The objectives of the discovery phase make complete sense to me. Lots of us have been asking for deeper access to the data, and for a focus beyond just “safe digging”. I think we all agree that safe digging is important but should not be the only focus. This was made very clear by the attendees during the event.

There appear to be 3 main asks from the community:

1. Access to NUAR data via API (so that value added products and services can be created)
2. Access granted to third-parties and not just asset owners.
3. Access to data at national or regional levels, not just at the discrete “site” level.

Access to NUAR via API

This is the most obvious next step for NUAR and is, in my opinion, the most important. If I try to visualise what NUAR is, I see it as 3 things:

1. The legislative framework and authority to require asset data to be shared with a central body so that it can be made available to others who need access to it.
2. The platform architecture that securely hosts the data and allows for data to be loaded and published. This should include an abstraction layer for data processing and summarisation.
3. The discrete “point solutions” and use cases for the data (safe digging is the first of these).

?

It’s my view that 1 and 2 should be managed by a central body, with 3 being left to other companies to develop and sell. This is where the interest in API (or other form of accessing the data) comes from, and perhaps also hints at some of the discomfort felt in the industry today towards NUAR (namely that the current MVP for safe digging, in the form of a web-based user interface, is potentially in competition with existing products).

I do see a risk at present that too much focus is placed on 3 (the UI) and that this becomes the only recognised output of NUAR. This would truly undervalue all the hard work that has clearly gone into achieving 1 and 2.

Access granted to third parties and not just asset owners

There are potentially a lot of different user categories of who might want access to NUAR data, including:

• Asset Owners: those that own or manage the assets and the data related to them. The most obvious being Electric, Gas, Water and Telecom companies.
• Contractors working on behalf of the asset owners: It’s these teams that are most likely to interact with NUAR data in the field when carrying out installation, repair, or maintenance works.
• Analysts & Planners: these could sit separate to the asset owner, perhaps working for central or local government and working on strategic initiatives (such as fibre rollout into rural areas).
• Value Added Products: These would be the systems that leverage the API access to provide value added products to customers (beyond just the asset owners).

?

Access to data at national or regional levels, not just at the discrete “site” level.

This was a common theme discussed during the session and is perhaps one of the more challenging. There were repeated discussions around data security, and that one way to secure data is to make it available only for discrete areas (i.e. within 100m of a site). I must confess that I believe “security” is being used as a catch-all that is perhaps masking fears around commercial sensitivity and concerns related to data quality. However, I do agree that security is very important for this type of data, so there needs to be a pragmatic approach to providing access at a broader scale whilst not jeopardising security.

But providing a means to analyse data at national or regional level opens a myriad of new use cases, beyond the reactive “we’re doing something in this area” to the proactive “where could we do something?”. ?

There were raised eyebrows when I suggested the concept of an “AI engine” to sit on top of the data (we’re British so any mention of buzzwords will quite rightly get a muted response).

What would I like to see?

I think I would like to see the following clarified for the future of NUAR:

1. More clarity on the future of the MVP and the UI. I think there is a real risk that NUAR becomes only about the UI (i.e. another Government website). ?
2. Focus on strengthening the core data store, including adding an abstraction layer that can intelligently analyse and summarise the data and provide insight to users. There were raised eyebrows when I suggested the concept of an “AI engine” to sit on top of the data (we’re British so any mention of buzzwords will quite rightly get a muted response).

?

I’m really excited to see what happens next with NUAR, and I’m pleased that there is interest from a wide sector of the community (although of course there is still plenty of room for more people to get involved!).

?

For more information on NUAR and what it is:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/national-underground-asset-register-nuar