The 2014 edition taught the industry a shared vocabulary. The 2022 edition tightened how that vocabulary is used. If your employer’s information requirements still say “PAS 128” without a year, you are leaving the surveyor to guess which rules apply. Name PAS 128:2022, then name the quality levels you actually need.
Survey types remain D, C, B and A. Type D is the records foundation. Type C is reconnaissance. Type B is detection. Type A is verification by exposure. Quality levels QL-D through QL-A describe the evidence behind each plotted segment. The CICES article on survey types and quality levels is the public explanation you can circulate without buying the PAS on day one.
The change specifiers notice first is the Type B minimum toolkit. Electromagnetic locating and ground penetrating radar are required together, plus the Type D and C work that precedes them. A locator-only pass is not a 2022 Type B survey. Neither is a radar-only walkover dressed as PAS 128.
Methodology types M1 to M4P then set intensity. Wider grids suit undeveloped land. Tighter grids and processed radar suit suburban edges and city-centre blocks. The P suffix is not decoration; it means someone will sit with the GPR data after the site visit. If you need that and do not say so, you will receive a real-time interpretation that cannot support the quality level you hoped to claim.
Deliverables also belong in the 2022 conversation. A drawing without quality levels is not a PAS 128 drawing. CAD in the project grid is the civils default. GIS is the asset-owner default. Ask for both if both audiences exist. The CICES client specification guide walks through those choices in the order a client actually makes them.
Safety is unchanged in spirit. HSG47 still expects planning, location and safe excavation. PAS 128:2022 is how the location step is specified so a London designer and a Glasgow contractor can argue about the same labels. It does not retire a permit or a CAT check on the day.
If you are rewriting a brief this month, start with PAS 128 surveys, decide whether you truly need Type A, and do not skip the desktop study to save a week you will spend later on a redesign.
Markings deserve a sentence of their own. Spray paint, chalk and flags help an excavator on day one and then disappear. The 2022 conversation treats them as a site convenience. The coordinated model is the record. If your brief only asks for paint, you will receive paint, and an incident investigation will ask why nobody kept the file.
Post-processing is the other quiet change in how serious Type B work is bought. A P methodology costs more because someone sits with the data after the van has left. On a reinforced slab that cost is the difference between a blank square and a qualified unknown. On an empty field it may be unnecessary. Write the choice down rather than leaving it to a surveyor’s optimism.
Clients also ask whether PAS 128 is “accredited”. The specification is a BSI PAS. Memberships of professional bodies can indicate how a firm likes to work. They are not a substitute for a method statement that names instruments, grids and residual risk. Do not accept a logo pack in place of those facts.
Finally, keep the 2014 wording out of new contracts. If a framework still cites the old edition, raise it. Quality-level conversations have moved on, and so has the Type B minimum toolkit. A team that specifies 2014 on a 2026 project is choosing ambiguity.
Annex-style client notes exist because the PAS itself is not a teaching document. Circulate the CICES guide internally before the kick-off so the project manager and the designer share the same nouns. A meeting that spends twenty minutes defining QL-B is a meeting that should have happened before the tender.
If your organisation buys surveys through a framework, add a one-page addendum that names 2022, the Type B pair, and the file formats. Frameworks drift. Addenda pull them back without rewriting the whole contract.
Then commission the work early enough that the drawing exists before the first excavation permit. A 2022 specification delivered the week after the first trench is a 2022 specification that arrived too late.