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Leading with Leica TRK Technology

The Leica TRK mobile mapping system sits at the heart of Castle Surveys’ mobile mapping capability, integrating high-precision GNSS, IMU and LiDAR sensors with multi-camera imaging to create dense, colourised 3D point clouds and imagery in a single pass. This engineering-grade data rivals, and often surpasses, traditional topographic methods in accuracy while covering far greater extents in a fraction of the time.​

Mounted on a Chapter 8–compliant vehicle, the TRK unit can capture highways, urban streets, industrial estates and linear infrastructure at speeds up to typical motorway limits, enabling efficient surveys of live networks without slow, labour-intensive setups. The system’s ability to operate effectively even in challenging GNSS environments, through advanced sensor fusion and SLAM, ensures consistent centimetre-level positioning across diverse UK sites.​​

Safety and Welfare First

By capturing data from the safety of a vehicle, Castle Surveys significantly reduces the need for surveyors to work in live carriageways, on verges or near rail lines, keeping boots off the ground in the highest-risk zones. This vehicle-based approach directly supports the welfare of field teams, cutting exposure to traffic, adverse weather, night working and other on-site hazards that traditionally accompany major infrastructure surveys.​

The reduction or removal of lane closures and conventional traffic management for many schemes not only improves safety for survey staff but also minimises risk to road users by avoiding complex temporary layouts and workforce proximity. In practice, this means more surveys can be completed in daylight and standard working hours, improving staff wellbeing and reducing fatigue while still meeting tight programme demands.​

Minimising Traffic Management and Network Disruption

One of the most transformational benefits of Castle Surveys’ mobile mapping workflows is the ability to survey extensive highway and urban networks with little or no traditional traffic management. Instead of repeated night shifts with lane closures, convoys and spot setups, the TRK-equipped vehicle can traverse the network at traffic speed, capturing all required geometry and asset information in one or two passes.​​

Because the system captures a full, high-resolution digital replica of the route, designers and engineers can undertake much of their detailed measurement, checking and option development remotely, reducing the need for follow-up site visits. This in turn lowers project costs, shortens programmes and avoids repeated disruption to the travelling public, all while maintaining the survey robustness required for design and construction.​

High-Accuracy, Multi-Purpose Geospatial Data

The Leica TRK mobile mapping solution delivers rich, survey-grade LiDAR point clouds and imagery suitable for topographic surveys, asset inventories, swept-path analysis, overhead line mapping, and integration into BIM and GIS environments. With careful control, processing and quality assurance, Castle Surveys routinely achieves centimetre-level absolute accuracy, aligning mobile mapping data with existing control networks and design baselines.​

This single-source dataset supports a wide range of use cases: highway alignments and earthworks, structures and drainage, street furniture and signage, clearance and vegetation studies, and coordination with underground utility investigations. By pairing the TRK platform with specialist processing tools and collaboration portals, Castle Surveys can share intuitive web-based views of LiDAR-derived data, so project teams can interrogate the survey without needing specialist CAD or GIS software.​​

Driving Innovation for UK Infrastructure

Through early adoption of Leica’s flagship TRK mobile mapping technology and a strong focus on safety-centric workflows, Castle Surveys has positioned itself at the forefront of mobile mapping in the UK infrastructure and development sector. The ability to scan above and, when combined with complementary technologies, below ground in a single campaign provides clients with a comprehensive understanding of their assets and corridors while keeping people out of harm’s way.​​

For highways authorities, engineers, developers and asset owners, this approach delivers faster, safer and more cost-effective surveys, with high-confidence datasets that integrate seamlessly into modern digital design workflows. By aligning technology investment with staff welfare and client outcomes, Castle Surveys is not just using mobile mapping – it is helping to define how mobile mapping surveys should be delivered across the UK.​