San Jose Water Gains Project Planning Efficiency with CivilGrid

About

CivilGrid aggregates data from multiple utilities in the pre-design and design stages of San Jose Water projects to yield efficiency gains across capital project workflows.

San Jose Water (SJW) Profile

• $1B infrastructure investment in last decade
• 140-sq. mile service area with 2,400 miles of pipe
• 24 miles of pipe replaced each year
• Data partner since June 2021 with 8 users

The Challenge

• Engineers annually manage 500+ data requests to regional gas, sewer, electric and telco companies.
• Site data arrives in different formats which requires manual consolidation.
• Lack of access to real-time data increases dig-in risk during reactive and emergency work.
• Teams struggle to coordinate co-located projects or plan around moratoriums to reduce restoration costs.

The Results

Instant access to detailed site-specific utility, environmental and geotechnical data enables San Jose Water engineers to initiate projects faster and have better insights during job walks. The tool is particularly helpful for pothole plan development and site plan view drafting. The conflict analysis feature shows overlapping projects and moratoriums in a single map, yielding more productive utility coordination meetings. CivilGrid is also being evaluated as a tool for storing detailed survey data for use in future projects.

Key Benefits

Improved Site Understanding: Better data in pre-design and design stages enhance routing and site due diligence.

Data in minutes: Site info is available in minutes instead of weeks, saving design time early in the project.

2-5% Project Cost Savings: Consolidated GIS data avoids moratoriums, coordinates paving, and syncs up co-located projects.