Assemblyman Jo O-seop: "Underground Informatization Project 'Poor Quality'... Concerns Over Expected Waste"

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Yoon Jamin] Concerns are emerging that the Underground Integrated Map project, promoted as part of the underground informatization project, may end up wasting the budget due to inaccuracies such as errors in underground facility information.

On the 19th, Assemblyman Jo O-seop (Democratic Party of Korea, Gwangju Buk-gu Gap) stated, “LX is carrying out the 3D Underground Integrated Map construction project, the final stage of the underground informatization project, but it has been found that the accuracy is low as communication pipes and gas pipes pass through subway stations currently in operation.”

This issue is scheduled to be pointed out during the national audit on the same day.

The underground informatization project has been promoted in three stages since 1989: digitization of underground facilities (Stage 1), establishment of an integrated facility management system (Stage 2), and construction of a 3D underground integrated map (Stage 3), with a budget of 410 billion KRW invested up to this year.

However, while promoting the 3D underground integrated map construction project, it was confirmed that information such as the location, depth, and pipe diameter of underground facilities contains errors or omissions, resulting in reduced accuracy of the 3D map.

Examples of errors in the 3D map include underground facility pipelines passing through subways, underpasses, underground shopping malls, and buildings, or underground facilities that should be buried under roads being located outside road zones and buried in buildings.

In fact, the 3D map of the underground information utilization system submitted by the Construction Technology Research Institute shows that in Bucheon City Hall Station, Gyeonggi Province, a gas pipeline passes through a subway station currently in operation, and in Heukseok-dong, Dongjak-gu, Seoul, water pipes are depicted as passing through several buildings.

The reason for the reduced accuracy in 3D map representation is analyzed to be due to discrepancies or omissions from the drawings during the implementation of stages 1 and 2, inaccuracies in various underground facility data produced by multiple institutions including private companies, and failure to input updated data.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport estimates the error rates in underground facility data as follows: water supply 11.8%, metropolitan water supply 35.2%, sewage 13.7%, electricity 18.2%, communication 23.5%, and gas 20.0%.

In particular, the most critical issue in this project is the overlapping depth problem of underground facilities such as pipelines.

However, analyzing the “quantity requiring accuracy review (estimated error rate),” it was found that the estimated error rates for heat transfer pipes, power lines, and communication lines sharply decreased last year from 47.8% to 0.6%, 62.4% to 0.6%, and 42.6% to 17.4%, respectively.

Considering the number of spatial data, this result is difficult to understand logically, and Assemblyman Jo explained that a separate investigation by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport into the relevant institutions seems necessary.

Assemblyman Jo said, “The underground informatization project is being promoted for safe management of underground spaces such as sinkhole prevention and ground subsidence, but if there are so many errors, it only increases confusion,” adding, “The accuracy of overlapping depths of various underground facilities such as gas pipes must be improved.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.