Street Strip Topo Estimates

[Scott]

I have been working on some Excel sheets to make estimating jobs easier. I've gone through jobs we have completed in the past and calculated some formulas to use:
1. 35 points per hour (what my crew can do)
2. 1 point per 4.3 linear foot of street.
3. 1.5 dollars per linear foot of street [for semi-urban (typical neighborhood, but not downtown), rural would be a lot less], this is everything from start to finish, including;
a. PW wages.
b. H&V control work.
c. Collection of topography points (x-sec every 100').
d. Collecting inverts of all underground.
e. Office plotting in ACAD and manager checking.
f. Solicitation of utility companies and plotting of answers back.
g. Walking the topo with the completed map for final check.

Judging from some of the bid results I have received comparing our proposed price and the prices of other companies, #3 is way too high and would like to ask everybody for comparisons to all three formulas.
I realize this information is considered private by some, but I hope somebody out there will respond.

Thanks in advance,

[E_Page]

Your crew is underperforming. They should be able to get at least 60/hr. If they are experienced with road/street topo, they should be getting more like 85 to 100/hr without losing any quality in their work. That includes having to stop to make a sketch or hand write some detail notes now and then.

[Ian Wilson]

35 point/hour is only 280 points in an 8-hour day.

For street topo, twice that is more realistic.

On September 16th 1999, my crew at Caltrans District 8: John Young (gun), Trent Lenfeste (rod) and I (rod) recorded 1016 shots coded in CTDC and collected almost without error.

Of course, John, now PLS 8284, was one of the fastest gunners I've ever seen. Trent (when are you sitting your exam) was one of the finest crew members I had.

So, Scott, hire a Caltrans crew to increase your productivity. ;^)

[Scott]

Evan,
Thanks for the response.
100 pnts/hr = 800pnts/day = 36 seconds per point. That is HAULIN'. Figure 25' between pnts that is 5 seconds walking, then taking the shot another 15 secs, then enter the code 15 secs. We are already at 35 seconds and no time for field book notes, set-up and check in and check out, rod height changes, offset shots, hand measuring items like tree spread and trunk diameter and pipe sizes, traffic, line of sight problems, the wondering eye behind the scope that wants to take a look at the snow on top of the Coast Range.
I think my best day as Party Chief was about 500 pnts, and that was a long straight street with little traffic and topo only from bsw to bsw. I also had a very speedy instrument man that day (he could fly on a ten-key, and is now licensed himself) and the codes were all straight forward and only 2 letters. In the ensuing years I have found it very difficult to find field crew members that are as speedy as we were back in the day (jeesh that makes me sound old).
If you ever lay any of your guys off, give them my number.

Thanks for your input too Ian. Wow 1000+ in one 8 hour day. How many setups was that? How far did they stretch the foresights? Was it dense topo (alot of points in a small area)?

Anybody else want to chime in on pnts/day? This is highly interesting.

[Steve Martin]

I remember doing 1200 shots one day while working for the City of San Diego. One setup in the middle of an intersection. We were trying to get the most out of the 8 or 9 hour day and had fun doing it.

[Scott]

How far are your longest foresights?

[RAM]

1' CI topo 2 person robitic 1000-1200 shots
2 person Nikon 521 400-600 shots
max distance to fs 300'

but I am only looking for +/= 0.1' because from here it is all downhill, it is a rare occasion we have to think about 0.01'

Ian I would hire a Cal Trans crew if needed but they get one truck.

[B.D.Ide]

I can claim about 800 or so, but they were quality points. You can sometimes build the same surface with less shots if you take'em where they need to be. Cross section style topo can slow you down, since you have to hammer in a new code all the time. I prefer to walk a little more and follow my line work most of the time. Also, if you are trying to automate your drafting you probably need to take more shots. Experience on the rod makes the most difference, I think. You need to be thinking about your next shot and telling the gunner on your way there. That way, the moment you are plumb he can hit the button. I,ve had some rodmen that have a hard time deciding where to put the rod down and then move it once or twice before they call out the code. So there are many factors involved, and I bow to the man that can stand at an instrument for eight full hours per day.

B.D.Ide , L.S.I.T.
City of Ventura

[Gromatici]

The most I ever did was for an ALTA - 800 points in 6 hours. Most of them were curbs and parking, with an S6 Robotic. That being said, I think 60 points per hour is a good amount to do in a day if there is monumentation searching and traversing. If you set up in one spot shooting points to draw a picture, then 600 or so is a good day.

I'm shocked at the Caltrans amount! Wow, 1016 points and a two hour lunch (with nap)! That's working! ;)

Of course I worked with a guy who would take a minute to turn the angle, focus, and press the "shoot" button. Drove me nuts. We had to institute the "10 second" rule. If you can't get the shot in 10 seconds, we're not taking the shot.

[E_Page]

I did this sort of productivity when working for another private consultant on Caltrans projects, and when working for the El Dorado County DOT.

In both cases, we were taking Caltrans style handwritten notes to supplement the recorded info for each point, and making general and detail sketches as necessary.

Some of the keys to this kind of productivity is to run as much linework as possible, I-man strive to keep the rodman moving by writing while the instrument is shooting and while the rodman is on the move. I-man needs to practice to the point that he is more efficient than the instrument's auto-tracking, shot taken as soon as rod is stable. Rodman needs to be very methodical with the order of shots, planning the individual shots 3 to 10 shots ahead of the current shot, and planning the order of features shot pretty much for the whole setup. That planning needs to occur in the time it takes the I-man to setup.

The rodman position is usually better performed by the chief as that's the position better suited to set the direction and pace of the work. For that reason, your chief can't be some lazy old fat dude with the attitude that he get's to just stand around at the instrument and watch some young buck run around because he, the chief, has put in his dues.

If that describes your chief, let me clue you in. You don't have a chief, but rather a glorified I-man as the lead worker. A chief is going to put himself where ever he can best direct the work and set the pace.

Line work shots go pretty quickly. When shooting EPs, CLs, tops, toes, stripes, etc., you should be getting 120 to 160 shots per hour (20 to 30 seconds per shot - very reasonable), especially if shooting 25' to 50' spacing. The other items: DIs, MHs, WMs, trees, etc., will obviously be slower as the I-man is taking more time typing in descriptions and writing. But 500 to 800 shots a day, depending upon the mix of features shot, the obstacles dealt with, etc., should be the norm.

Our better days, 2-man crew, 800 to 1000 points in a 10 hour day, including setup and travel time; 3-man crew, 1000 to 1200 in a 10 hour day.

Of course, your instrument needs to be up to the task as well. When we were working with an old SET-2, we would get 200 to 250 shots in a 10 hr day. The above numbers were using a TCRA-1103.

Edit - to answer your foresight distance question, to keep the vertical values reliable, we would usually limit our foresight distances to around 350' to 400'. Often, it was less than that.

But I just thought of a possible reason that may explain some of the disparity between our numbers and yours. If your control is figured into your shots per hour number, that's going to bring it down. My productivity description is assuming that we had already run and adjusted the control. When doing the topo, there were times that we would set some supplementary control without significantly decreasing the overall number of shots per day. But mostly, the only control was check shots on previously set points.

[Stan_K]

Our newest PC collected 450 shots yesterday in 4 hours at the Roseville Galleria Mall. Three setups, one new trav point, lots of traffic. A One-Man crew with robot.

You said 15 seconds to take shot and 15 seconds to code. Check into newer or different brands. I am accustomed to 5 seconds for shot AND coding.

[E_Page]

When I was working on Caltrans projects, and when I was with the County, we were working on projects where we would spend several weeks collecting topo, mostly along roads. I would base the estimate of the topo portion based upon an average of 700 shots per 10 hour day for areas along the roads and 350/day in the woods.

In actual practice, over the course of a project, those estimates proved pretty accurate.

[goodgps]

Point collection numbers vary depending on jobsite conditions ie traffic, weather, amount of infrastructure per x-section, etc.

A topo of an apartment complex can yeild 600-1000 pnts/day.
Now a farm-style levee road, complete with roadside ditch/fences and other stuff may only yield 300-500/day. If a crew is just taking "gobs" of shots, then a mass of high numbers is to be expected.
If the job requires manhole dipping, offsets, etc, then this "slows" the bottom line production.

"good"

[dmi]

please tell us what brand new wonderful leica toy you have. When you speak of 5 seconds for coding are you talking about field to finish coding for linework?
What data collector are you using? onboard? data collection software?

thanks for your help

[goodgps]

I did have a crew collect 1100 points in a day. about 300 of them were suspect, and had to be reshot two days later. bringing the total down to 700 good shots/day.

Coding seems to be the time delay. do the 5 seconds begin when the rod is plumb?

Although It seems that Scotts crew is under achieving, I'm not too sure that he is that far off when the whole picture is considered.
And by the way, Scott does absolutely excellent work.

PS,
Are these instruments you speak of . . . for real ?
or,
Are you talking about guys who can run for 4 hours straight and still hold the rod steady enough for a good shot ?

Maybe I'm getting old 8^(

[Ian Wilson]

Take a look at MicroSurvey's Field Genius. With proper collection file set up, you can collect each shot with coding that will place the symbol, point node, description, elevation and line work on whatever layer you choose for the item. Color, line weight, scale size and other attributes can also be set.

Oh, for line work, once the line has been set up and two points shot, coding the next shot for the line is as "slow" as tapping the appropriate line on the collector screen. That should take all of 3/4 of a second in even the slowest of field crew...

Surfaces can be processed in the field and viewed to confirm the modeling as well.

Couple Field Genius with MicroSurvey MSCAD (2009 version just released) and you have a really impressive field-to-finish system.

One I am sorely missing now that I am having to use...well, a very expensive system that doesn't live up to half of what Field Genius can do.

[Dave Karoly, PLS]

I demo'd Field Genius-pretty cool. Carlson added linework buttons but that is still just putting the code into the code field. It's a step ahead but I'm not spending money so I'll keep on with what I already have. That little orange DC with Field Genius looks pretty attractive.

All this rush-rush gets old after awhile. I used to do that when I was younger but life's too short. I don't think I'll being laying on my deathbed saying, "geez I could've gotten another 200 shots on January 2nd, 2010; I wish I could get out there to get those shots :("

[goodgps]

Who is this field genuis I read about and where can I hire him ?

We have two field to finish programs but havent really mastered either of them.

I did have a guy work on setting it up beu liek everything, he made it so complex that it wasnt practical.

The problem I've seen in the past few years, and even in the early '70s is that one field crew can keep 3-4 drafters busy.

Field to finish is a must have just as is a data collector and total station.

Another problem I;ve had with field to finish, is recognition of features by the field crew.

data comes in with a WV symbol and a line going directly on the centerline of a street, but upon inspection, it was discovered that "water" lids were placed on cl-mon boxes. Stuff like that . . . Alas. . .what to do when you cant be everywhere at once