Supporting the Next Generation of Utility Coordination in Australia

Australia’s construction and infrastructure sectors are entering a period of significant change.

Housing growth, the energy transition, major transport projects and increasing pressure on engineering capacity are all reshaping how infrastructure needs to be planned and delivered. To meet that demand, the sector needs better access to the information that sits underneath every project: utility data.

Underground and overhead utility information underpins design decisions, construction sequencing, excavation planning and safety outcomes. Yet across the industry, that information has often been difficult to access, fragmented across PDF plans, legacy records, inconsistent formats and disconnected systems.

Before You Dig Australia (BYDA) is leading an important shift in how that information can be accessed, coordinated and used at a national scale.

The BYDA Digital Utility Portal (BDUP) is a secure, GIS-enabled digital environment designed to bring underground and overhead utility asset information into one place. It gives users the ability to interact with layered utility data, view asset details, and access location information in digital formats, supporting a more consistent and efficient approach to planning and design.

For Australia, this is a practical step toward a more digital, automated and data-driven infrastructure sector.

Led by BYDA, Supported by Reveal

BDUP is BYDA’s initiative, shaped through their leadership, industry mandate and collaboration with asset owners, government and more than 1,000 industry stakeholders. BYDA has been the driving force behind the move from traditional utility referral processes toward a more connected national model for digital utility information.

Reveal’s role is to support that vision through the technology and data capability behind Undermaps.

Undermaps provides a core technology layer that helps transform fragmented utility information into structured, usable spatial data. Built from years of subsurface engineering, utility surveying and data management experience, Undermaps is designed to ingest, process, validate and visualise underground utility data in a way that can be used by planners, designers, asset owners and delivery teams.

That matters because automation and AI in infrastructure are only useful when the underlying data is fit for purpose.

BDUP helps create the conditions for that shift. By moving away from disconnected, PDF-based processes and toward a secure GIS-enabled view of utility information, the sector can begin to reduce manual interpretation, improve consistency and make utility data easier to use across project workflows.

From Static Records to Usable Digital Utility Data

One of the biggest barriers to better utility coordination is not the absence of information. It is the condition of the information.

Utility data often exists across historic plans, scanned drawings, PDF responses, GIS layers, as-builts, surveys and field records. Each source may contain useful information, but converting that into something reliable, structured and accessible has traditionally required significant manual effort.

Undermaps helps address this by supporting the conversion of traditional utility records into digital, geospatially aligned datasets. Through automated processing, georeferencing, quality assurance and structured data workflows, information that was once difficult to interpret can become easier to view, manage and apply.

For BDUP users, this means the potential for:

• Faster access to utility information

• A clearer view of underground and overhead assets

• Reduced reliance on manual plan interpretation

• Digital outputs that support design and planning workflows

• Better coordination between asset owners, engineers, contractors and field teams

This is the foundation that enables more useful automation. Not automation for the sake of it, but automation that removes repetitive manual work, reduces avoidable errors and helps people make better decisions sooner.

Enabling Safer, Faster and More Productive Delivery

The case for change is clear.

BYDA’s work highlights the scale of the problem across Australia, with utility strikes creating major economic cost, delivery disruption and safety risk. The BDUP Proof of Concept demonstrated meaningful productivity benefits, including reported time savings for planning, design and construction users.

Those outcomes are important because every hour spent manually searching, interpreting and redrawing utility information is time that could be spent solving higher-value engineering and delivery challenges.

By making utility information faster to access and easier to use, BDUP supports a more productive sector. By improving visibility of underground and overhead assets, it supports safer planning and excavation. By creating a shared digital environment, it supports better coordination between the organisations responsible for Australia’s infrastructure.

The benefits flow through to the wider economy as well. Better utility data can reduce rework, improve design confidence, support faster project starts and help infrastructure teams deliver with fewer avoidable delays.

A Foundation for Intelligent Infrastructure Delivery

AI and automation will play a growing role in construction and infrastructure, but the real opportunity starts with better data.

BDUP is helping create that foundation for utility information in Australia. As data becomes more structured, accessible and consistent, the sector can begin to apply more advanced digital workflows across planning, design, risk management and delivery.

That could mean faster assessment of utility conflicts, improved data validation, more efficient design coordination and better feedback loops as field-verified information is captured and reused. Over time, every project has the potential to contribute to a more accurate and useful understanding of the utility networks that support Australia’s cities, regions and communities.

This is where Reveal is focused.

Through Undermaps, we are helping support the shift from fragmented records to living utility intelligence. The goal is not to replace the expertise of engineers, locators, designers or asset owners. It is to give them better tools, better data and better workflows so they can do their work with more confidence.

Built for Industry Outcomes

The success of BDUP depends on industry participation. Asset owners, contractors, designers, utilities and government all have a role to play in improving how utility data is shared and used.

BYDA is leading that change.

Reveal is proud to support it.

Together, the work behind BDUP shows what becomes possible when industry leadership, asset-owner collaboration and practical technology come together. For the construction and infrastructure sectors, it points toward a future where utility information is no longer a hidden constraint, but a usable digital asset that supports safer works, faster delivery and better national outcomes.

BDUP is a major step in that direction, and we are excited to be helping bring it to life.

Sources used for grounding: BYDA’s BDUP paper describes BYDA’s leadership role, the secure GIS-enabled map, AS5488/OGC MUDDI alignment, SOCI compliance, productivity savings and pilot pathway. Reveal materials describe Undermaps as the technology layer underpinning BDUP, including automated digitisation, validation, geospatial data management and continuous improvement workflows.