CASE STUDY

The challenge

Initially, GIS helped the team manage centreline data and attach key highway attributes for everything from speed limits and classifications to engineering constraints. But over time, it became clear that without accurate boundary information, their current systems would fall short in helping teams defend ownership, plan improvements, or manage assets.

“We’re continually answering these highway inquiries,” George, as head of the team, explains. “From fences and ditches to embankments and footways, what’s public highway and what isn’t determines everything.”

That demand led to a county-wide initiative to establish a legally defensible, spatially accurate record of the highway boundary — “with ‘accurately’ being the pertinent word,” according to George.

For years, the team relied on paper maps, measuring wheels, and manual surveys by two-person crews. Of the 5,400km road network, 4,600km had already been mapped using legal records, historic mapping and manual site surveys, but the remaining 850km, mostly rural roads, needed site surveys. At an estimated 6.66 hours per kilometre, the job would’ve taken 5,600+ staff hours (or 1,127 working days).

What’s more, not all routes come with a clear paper trail. Many of the cases are “predominantly rural Ancient Highways” where, under common law, the assumption is “boundary to boundary.”

But George’s team wanted to go further than rule-of-thumb estimates or assumptions based on third-party maps. “We’ve worked, advised and talked with people who put a lot of weight, for example, on the Ordnance Survey map as being the underpinning physical limit of a highway,” he says. “But when OS are going out, surveying physical features on the ground, they don’t care who maintains them or who owns them. They’re just physically mapping what they see, so there’s no legal basis on if the OS has designated something as carriageway or footway—that doesn’t mean that that’s highway.”

Instead, the team created their own authoritative GIS layer, built from physical site surveys, legal records, and historic mapping, going beyond assumptions and into verifiable evidence that “talks to the OS map,” but is built from a much broader and legally sound dataset.

But the actual capturing of this boundary data using traditional methods would be unsustainable. George and his team, examining everything from ditches and embankments to fence lines and street furniture, were often needing to take two passes: one in person, and one reviewing notes back at the desk using GIS.

Even defining the edge of the carriageway can be a challenge in rural areas. “Especially when you’re out in rural roads that might not bear any resemblance to what the edge of the carriageway that OS has mapped,” he says. Measurements, such as a verge being 2.5 metres from the carriageway edge, become unreliable if the mapped edge doesn’t match the ground reality. “You’re not confident on the point you’re measuring is the same as what you measured on the ground.”

The solution

“That led us to seek a better way,” George continues. “And that’s where the investigation into a digital surveying solution came to mind because we appreciated we still have to go out and survey. But we did a calculation, and even by reducing and by setting up a system that captured limit data in a digital format that was easily transferable into a GIS, resulted in at least a 50% saving on time from manual to with the kit. Simply having the data in a digital form removed the need to interpret site notes and then capture on GIS back at the office”

“So that then opened our eyes to what was out there, and we just wanted to invest in the most accurate GNSS that we could, something that we could write a pretty cogent business case for based on accuracy.”

After researching for a smarter solution that would allow them to capture accurate geospatial data quickly, directly into GIS, without all the duplication and guesswork, the team invested in the Arrow Gold GNSS receiver from MGISS. “It seemed to be pitched at the right price with the right professed accuracy,” George notes. “And MGISS were perhaps the only supplier of the Arrow Gold at the time, and the rest, as they say, is history. We’ve worked with MGISS ever since.”

George notes that disputes over highway boundaries are common, and being able to demonstrate sub-centimetre accuracy helps the council make defensible decisions backed by auditable geospatial evidence, “You have to balance what is reasonable and caveat,” he says. That’s why his team has always aimed for the highest possible standard, “we’re talking sub-centimetre accuracy goals!”

“If we can hang our hat on that, in any given scenario,” George says, “and we’ve got the kit singing one song, we’ve got the connections and we can guarantee that a point in space is within a centimetre, then that’s going to be the most accurate thing that we’re looking at. It’s going to be more accurate than a map. It’s going to be more accurate than a paper plan. It was the desire to go for the best we could at the time that brought us to MGISS.”

“On the whole now we are getting very, very, very accurate results,” George relates. “So, it’s definitely been worthwhile.” For the Highways team, it all comes down to confidence in the data.

To achieve the sub-centimetre accuracy they were aiming for, George and the team knew they needed access to a reliable RTK correction service. “We only had a legacy RTK that was predominately for agricultural purposes,” he explains, “so we moved over to Smartnet.”

Switching to Lecia’s Smartnet RTK gave them the ability to maintain high-accuracy GNSS across the county. “So, for us to maintain the service and accuracy that we’ve become accustomed to, then RTK corrections is something that we’ll always have, as well as high accuracy GNSS.”

It’s a setup that’s paying off. “We have people out multiple times a week now and everything is working well, so we’re very happy.”

The result

The Traditional Process vs. MGISS Workflow
Before adopting a GNSS-based GIS workflow, Surrey relied on a manual surveying process that included:

• Preparing large-scale paper maps and plotting routes
• Two-person teams physically measuring intervals with a wheel and tape
• Recording survey data manually
• Re-digitising hand-marked measurements in the office

This resulted in a total effort of 6.66 hours per kilometre. Projected over the remaining 846km of network, this meant over 5,600 staff hours—or 1127 working days—to complete the job.

By contrast, with MGISS’s GNSS-enabled solution (Arrow Gold and Esri mobile apps, surveyors can now:

• Work independently in the field
• Record real-time GNSS-corrected points, lines and polygons
• Include geotagged photographs and notes on the spot
• Stream data directly into ArcGIS Online with minimal post-processing

Impact:

• Survey time per km reduced from 6.66 hours to 1 hour
• Capture completion time cut from 1127 days to just 170 days
• Effort potentially reduced by over 85%
• Accurate GIS-ready data captured directly in the field

Having the right kit has made all the difference, helping the team shift from theoretical maps to what’s really happening on the ground. “The kit has been invaluable in supporting us and showing what the real-world picture is. You can have a hypothetical discussion about lines on a map, but what’s there on the ground is real life. There’s a lot of data and we can trust it, which is great.”

Connectivity has also been a key factor in delivering that accuracy across rural and remote areas. “We give ourselves the best opportunity of getting the most accurate stuff wherever we are in Surrey and not be limited, hopefully, by network,” George says. “The Smartnet RTK and the multi-SIM that we got from MGISS go hand in hand. If you don’t have a mobile signal, you don’t get corrections, but with the multi-SIM that opens up the possibility of another network being available to get that connection. So we’re very happy with the setup now, as it is.”

Following delivery, MGISS provided hands-on onboarding that included setup and training. Staff quickly adapted to using Esri mobile apps for ArcGIS on tough Android devices, mapping with ease and adding contextual photos as needed.

Custom workflows linked to ArcGIS Online now provide real-time visualisation of surveys as they happen, streamlining internal decision-making and Quality Assurance.

Additional Benefits

• The equipment has enabled staff to survey difficult boundary areas, improving confidence in legal definitions.
• It has supported insurance investigations and asset surveys with high positional accuracy.
• Real-time data syncing has enhanced internal collaboration, allowing other members of the team to view and use survey data instantly.
• Surveyors can now identify mapping discrepancies and verify physical features with ease.

George and his team have been happy with the overall experience. “We’ve seen improvements working with you guys, we’ve had support. We had an issue with a cable that was sorted in a matter of days. We’re in a good place and my guys are well versed with what they need to know. The support MGISS offer is great, we’ve almost got a hotline into you guys!”

The strength of the kit that the Highway Boundary Team at Surrey CC have been implementing has also had a ripple effect across the wider organisation, according to George. “We’ve built a bit of a following from people at Surrey who know what we can do with the kit and request our services because there’s a wealth of location-based issues where we’re able to give them the most accurate data they could want; anything from confirming an encroachment to assisting with insurance claims.”

“The applications and the value of the kit have been more than what we originally imagined and has opened the eyes of people to investigate further potential uses,” George says. “I’m constantly asked to give demonstrations for our colleagues in the countryside, and there’s a lot of potential future applications within an authority like Surrey CC.”

One area of growing interest is transport studies. “The Transport Studies team, who do traffic and speed monitoring, are now looking to integrate something similar based on our experience; gathering very accurate location data of their other monitoring equipment and building a solution. There’s been a lot of these discussions about the potential applications of it and there’s a lot of people who can see the value of it in Surrey.”

Supported by MGISS and powered by Arrow Gold, ArcGIS online, Multi -SIM and Smartnet RTK, the Highway Boundary Team’s digital transformation has not only delivered time and cost savings but also strengthened Surrey CC’s ability to defend, manage, and plan their public infrastructure with confidence.

Driven by the need for efficiency, precision, and reliability, the shift from paper-based workflows to digital, GIS-integrated surveying is now proving invaluable across the council.

With the power of accurate, location-based data internally advocated, mobile GIS data capture is empowering not only highways teams, but a wider range of local authority services awake to the incredible potential of spatial intelligence.