Operation and maintenance (O&M) of underground utilities is crucial to ensure normal functionality of utilities by performing different inspection and maintenance activities. A variety of data are required by maintenance staff to evaluate utility condition and make decisions in planning maintenance works. Nevertheless, data required for utility O&M are usually originated from different sources, with various formats or representations. Interpreting and integrating such heterogenous data for utility O&M remains a significant challenge. Therefore, this paper proposes an ontology-based framework for modelling lifecycle utility information such as to facilitate activities and support decision making during utility O&M. The framework consists of (1) a data layer to collect various types of utility lifecycle data, (2) a knowledge layer to extract common mechanisms and methods for utility O&M, (3) an ontology layer where a domain ontology, Utility Operation and Maintenance Ontology (UOMO), is developed with entities and semantic rules to represent different categories of information related to utility projects, (4) an application layer to automate manual tasks and support decision making by leveraging the query and reasoning capability of ontology. To validate the framework, a case study is performed using real-world inspection data where a user interface is developed to allow users to implement different functions without technical knowledge. The case study demonstrates that the framework can, efficiently and automatically, extract and integrate various information to assist different activities, e.g. defect rating, condition assessment and validation, as well as to support decision making in prioritizing maintenance works, and selecting appropriate maintenance methods. This study contributes by proposing the first ontology-based framework for improving efficiency in utility O&M, where the query and semantic reasoning capabilities of the ontology are fully utilized. The developed ontology with lifecycle utility information is expected to facilitate data interoperability in the utility domain and can be extended with other knowledge for large-scale infrastructure management.

地下公用设施的运营和维护 (O&M) 对于通过执行不同的检查和维护活动来确保公用设施的正常功能至关重要。维护人员需要各种数据来评估公用设施状况并在规划维护工作时做出决策。然而，公用事业运营和维护所需的数据通常来自不同的来源，具有不同的格式或表现形式。为公用事业运营和维护解释和整合此类异类数据仍然是一项重大挑战。因此，本文提出了一个基于本体的框架，用于对生命周期公用事业信息进行建模，以便在公用事业运维期间促进活动和支持决策制定。该框架由（1）一个数据层组成，用于收集各种类型的公用事业生命周期数据，ü效用Ø peration和中号aintenance Øntology (UOMO)，是用实体和语义规则开发的，用于表示与公用事业项目相关的不同类别的信息，(4) 一个应用层，通过利用本体的查询和推理能力来自动化手动任务并支持决策制定。为了验证该框架，我们使用真实世界的检查数据进行了案例研究，其中开发了一个用户界面，允许用户在没有技术知识的情况下实现不同的功能。案例研究表明，该框架可以高效、自动地提取和整合各种信息，以协助不同的活动，例如缺陷评级、状况评估和验证，以及支持制定维护工作优先级和选择适当维护方法的决策。本研究通过提出第一个基于本体的框架来提高公用事业运维的效率，充分利用本体的查询和语义推理能力。具有生命周期公用事业信息的开发本体有望促进公用事业领域的数据互操作性，并且可以扩展其他知识以进行大规模基础设施管理。