Advanced Onboarding 3: Multi-Asset Functionality

Routing an asset can sometimes be more complicated than deciding where to put it- it can also become a question of what to put. For example, should OHLs be routed around an Ancient Woodland, or should a cable be HDD'd under it? How do you ensure that these variations are being considered? How can you take the endless combinations of asset types and construction methods into account when you are routing infrastructure?

Luckily, Optioneer has built-in multi-asset functionality. This allows the user to configure Optioneer to consider multiple asset types and installation methods and determine which is best based on many factors such as:

🔩 technical constraints
🌳 environmental sensitivities
🏰 consenting risk
🪨 geology

👉 How Optioneer Selects an Asset

First, Optioneer determines what can be placed. As part of the standard configuration setup, the technical limits associated with each asset are specified. This includes no-go zones, elevation limits and slope limits.

Optioneer determines for each point along a route, what can be placed based on these inputs. Let’s take the following example.

Table 1. Example technical limits for wood poles, steel towers and cables. These are all configurable in Optioneer.

Asset Type	Nogo zones	Slope Limit	Elevation Limit
🪵 Wood Pole	Rivers, ancient woodland	10°	200m
⚡️ Steel Tower	Rivers, urban areas, ancient woodland	12°	300m
🔋 Cable		12°	-

Take the route points in Table 2 as an example. A route point is a sample point along the length of the route. These are typically every 30 meters in Optioneer but for the sake of this exercise, this is simplified to six points. Each route point has a constraint, an elevation and a slope associated with it. First, Optioneer will determine what can be placed at each point. This has been filled out in the bottom three rows of Table 2 below and is depicted in Figure 1.

Table 2. Example route points have associated constraints, elevation and slope values. Based on these, suitable assets can be selected.

Route Point	1	2	3	4	5	6
Constraint	Agricultural Land	Urban Area	Agricultural Land	River crossing	Agricultural Land	Ancient woodland
Elevation	150m	152m	150m	150m	148m	130m
Slope	2°	11°	2°	2°	6°	5°
🪵 Wood Pole	✅	✅	✅	⛔️	✅	⛔️
🗼 Steel Tower	✅	⛔️	✅	⛔️	✅	⛔️
🔋 Cable	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅

Figure 1. From the technical limits, Optioneer will determine the candidate assets that can be placed at each point. This example shows the results for the assets shown in Table 2.

None of the route points exceed the elevation in place for the assets.
The slope limit is exceeded for wood poles in a stretch of urban area.
This section of the route contains an urban area, a river and ancient woodland which limit the assets that can be placed here.

For the fourth and sixth route points, we can see that cable is the only suitable asset for these route points, and therefore can be selected. But for the remainder of the route points, Optioneer needs to choose. To do this, Optioneer uses the user inputs from the Installation Priority Component.

From these inputs, Optioneer can deduce user preference, which will typically relate to the cost of the asset. Optioneer can now assign the suitable asset to each route point. See below for the result.

Table 3. Based on the user preference, Optioneer will select the most suitable asset for each route point.

Route Point	1	2	3	4	5	6
Constraint	Agricultural Land	Urban Area	Agricultural Land	River crossing	Agricultural Land	Ancient woodland
Elevation	150m	152m	150m	150m	148m	130m
Slope	2°	11°	2°	2°	6°	5°
🪵 Wood Pole	✅	✅	✅	⛔️	✅	⛔️
🗼 Steel Tower	⛔️	⛔️	⛔️	⛔️	⛔️	⛔️
🔋 Cable	⛔️	⛔️	⛔️	✅	⛔️	✅

Figure 2. Using the user-defined priorities or preferences, Optioneer will select the most suitable asset at each point from the candidate assets.

🧠 Extra things to know about multi-asset functionality:

If there is a point along a route, that Optioneer doesn’t have a suitable asset for, the entire route will be considered infeasible.

Module 4