Mobile Mapping Italy’s Fiber Network at National Scale
In this article, we cover:
- Why traditional mobile mapping workflows struggle at national scale
- How automation makes fleet-based data collection viable
- A real-world example from Italy’s nationwide fibre-mapping program
- How BeeXact and OXTS built a scalable mobile mapping pipeline
Transportation and utility infrastructure form the backbone of modern society, yet the precise location, condition, and specification of these assets are often poorly documented. For governments, utility providers, and planners, this lack of reliable, geospatially enabled data creates real challenges. Maintenance is prioritized using incomplete information, safety risks can go unnoticed, and long-term planning becomes reactive rather than strategic. As infrastructure networks age and expand, the value of accurate, up-to-date asset inventories has never been higher.
Mobile mapping has emerged as one of the most effective ways to address this gap. By combining imagery, lidar, and precise positioning, mobile mapping systems make it possible to create detailed digital twins of road networks, signage, and utility assets. These digital representations support everything from routine maintenance to large-scale infrastructure upgrades. In recent years, the ambition of these projects has grown dramatically, with city-wide and even nationwide mapping initiatives becoming increasingly common.
Why scale breaks traditional mobile mapping workflows
While mobile mapping works well at local or regional scales, projects often begin to fail as they expand. At national scale, the challenges are less about raw sensor capability and more about operational reality. Survey vehicles may be operated by non-specialists. Data volumes quickly reach overwhelming levels. GNSS correction data must be applied consistently across thousands of survey runs. Most critically, manual processing steps that are manageable for small projects become untenable when dozens of vehicles are collecting data simultaneously, day after day.
Successful national-scale mobile mapping therefore depends on more than accuracy alone. It requires systems that are stable, repeatable, and highly automated – capable of delivering consistent results regardless of operator skill level, geographic location, or data volume.
Mapping every road in Italy
One of the most ambitious examples of mobile mapping at scale is currently underway in Italy, where survey teams are driving every road in the country to locate and classify the nation’s fibre optic infrastructure. The goal of the project is to create a comprehensive, geospatially accurate dataset that supports planning, prioritization, and future upgrades of this critical network.
More than 80 vehicles operate simultaneously, collecting data five days a week across Italy’s entire road network. The resulting data volumes are immense, and the positioning solution must deliver centimeter-level accuracy over long distances, often in challenging GNSS environments. Just as importantly, the workflow must be simple enough to be deployed reliably across a large fleet without requiring skilled operators in every vehicle.
Automation as the enabling technology
To meet the demands of nationwide mapping, BeeXact partnered with OXTS to develop a mobile mapping solution built for scale. Each vehicle was equipped with an OXTS RT3000 v4 GNSS/INS to deliver high-accuracy positioning, orientation, and sensor synchronization. The mapping payload combined six Teledyne Ladybug5+ cameras for 360° imagery with a Hesai lidar sensor for point-cloud capture, enabling comprehensive, repeatable data collection across the entire road network.
“Together BeeXact and OXTS built a custom data processing pipeline using NAVsolve CMD, that automates the application of nationwide GNSS corrections from Leica’s Smartnet RINEX service. This pipeline generates highly accurate data without the need for any manual intervention. OXTS Georeferencer was also integrated into the pipeline to combine the raw LiDAR data and post-processed geospatial data to create georeferenced point clouds.”
A template for future projects
The Italian mapping initiative demonstrated that nationwide mobile mapping is not only achievable, but scalable and repeatable when automation is built into the workflow from the outset. By combining high-performance GNSS/INS technology with reliable sensor synchronization and automated processing, BeeXact and OXTS established a model for capturing large transportation networks efficiently and consistently.
This approach is now informing similar large-scale infrastructure mapping projects beyond Italy, as governments and asset owners increasingly look to digital twins to support maintenance, planning, and long-term investment decisions.
For more details on how this automated workflow was designed, deployed, and scaled to map an entire country’s road network, read the full BeeXact–OXTS case study.
