Category: Land Surveying

Land surveying has seen many technological advancements in recent decades, including electronic distance measurement, global positioning systems, and robotic total stations. The next big advancement could be the use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) or drones.

In recent years, the biggest hurdle hasn’t been technology, but rather regulatory. Drones operate in federal airspace, and by law requires an FAA license to operate.

A recent article in Fortune Magazine indicates the FAA has worked with the UAS industry to streamline the approval process for granting licenses to operate drones. http://fortune.com/2015/08/09/faa-commercial-drone-permits/

Just one year ago the ability to operate commercial drones in the U.S. was more concept than reality. Only two companies in the country were cleared by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to operate those types of drones, and they were located in the far northern hinterlands of Alaska. One year later, the commercial drone industry looks drastically different. On Wednesday the FAA announced that it had approved more than 1,000 applications from companies seeking to operate commercial drones, and currently approving applications at a rate of roughly 50 per week.

That news is significant, considering that roughly a dozen companies were approved to operate drones commercially at the beginning of 2015. Since then, the unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) industry and the FAA have worked to streamline the approval process. The agency has also loosened certain aspects of its commercial drone regulations to allow approved companies greater flexibility in how they use commercial drones.

Those efforts have driven a drastic uptick in the number of companies approved to fly under so-called “Section 333 exemptions” as well as a broadening of the applications for which these drones are employed. The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) recently examined the first 500 commercial drone permits issued by the FAA and found exemptions spanned 20 major industries across 48 U.S. states.

The AUVSI examination also revealed “general aerial surveying” constituted the largest sector for commercial drone permits issued by the FAA.

You can review the authorizations granted by the FAA via the Section 333 exemptions here: https://www.faa.gov/uas/legislative_programs/section_333/333_authorizations/

Drones have a great potential to impact the civil engineering and land surveying industries. It’s sure to be something we keep our eyes on for the future.

For civil engineers and land surveyors, it’s conventional wisdom that in order to reduce traffic congestion you have to build more roads. However, according to this interesting article in the mathematics magazine “Plus Magazine”, there are several examples where traffic has improved after removing roads.

https://plus.maths.org/content/want-less-traffic-build-fewer-roads

The closing of 42nd street, a very busy crosstown road in New York City, during Earth Day in April 1990, was expected to cause a traffic nightmare. Instead, as reported in The New York Times on December 25, 1990, the flow of traffic actually improved.

In 2003, the Cheonggyencheon stream restoration project began in Seoul, removing a six-lane highway. The project opened in 2005, and besides substantial environmental benefits, a speeding up of traffic was observed around the city.

The article also mentions the reverse phenomenon of negative effects seen with expanding a road network:

If closing roads might help traffic flow, the negative effects of expanding a road network can be observed as well. For instance, in the late 1960s the city of Stuttgart decided to open a new street to alleviate the downtown traffic. Instead, the traffic congestion worsened and the authorities ended up closing the street, which improved the traffic.

The theory behind this phenomenon is described below.

Stories like these abound and as you might suspect, some mathematics is lurking behind them all. Indeed, in 1968, the mathematician Dietrich Braess, working at the Institute for Numerical and Applied Mathematics in Münster, Germany, proved that “an extension of a road network by an additional road can cause a redistribution of the flow in such a way that the travel time increases.” In his work Braess assumed that the drivers will act selfishly, each of them choosing a route based on their own perceived benefit, with no regard for the benefit of other drivers. It’s an assumption that reflects the harsh conditions of rush hour traffic rather well!

The phenomenon Braess observed, now called the Braess paradox, is not really a paradox, but just unexpected behaviour showing that we are not very well equipped to predict the outcomes of collective interactions.

Although there are many positive effects to traffic congestion by expanding roadway networks, there can also be unintended consequences and we may not necessarily realize  the benefits we expected.