Bega Valley Shire Council & VAPAR case study
- Processed over 3,500 videos
- 85,000 metres inspected
- 175,000+ pipe features & defects identified
Bega Valley Shire Council is responsible for the maintenance and service of water and sewer assets servicing a population of approximately 29,000 within the Bega area of NSW, Australia.The council undertakes regular condition assessment inspections of their assets annually to manage risk and meet the level of service for the community.Bega Valley Shire Council engaged Interflow, a leader in trenchless water infrastructure solutions to assist in the design and rehabilitation of many of their water and sewer assets.Interflow was tasked with assessing the previous condition assessment reports to design and deliver the rehabilitation works for the gravity sewer network across the Bega LGA.
About The Client
The Bega Valley Shire is a local government area adjacent to New South Wales's south-eastern coastline. With over 500 kms and $250 Million in water assets servicing 29,000 people.
Project Snapshot
Bega Valley Shire Council engaged Interflow to assess and plan their trenchless gravity sewer program for the financial year of 2023/24.Bega Valley Shire Council have previously spent a great deal of time performing condition assessment inspections within their assets to identify a prioritised program for cleaning, lining and sealing works.
About The Contractor
Interflow has worked with 200 water authorities, uploaded over 295,000 metres of inspections to the VAPAR platform since they began. With a plan to deliver 150,000 metres of combined sewer and stormwater inspections to over 20 contractor & council clients in the financial year of 2023/24 using VAPAR.The Interflow team have been using the VAPAR platform for contract delivery since 2020.
The Challenge & Opportunity
Interflow has delivered a series of previous condition assessment reports and videos from Bega Valley Shire Council via USB. To which they will require a program of re-inspection and, a detailed assessment of junction and lining works to supply back to Bega Valley Shire Council with pre and post-lining works footage and industry standard PDF reports.This program requires that Interflow follow a structured program using location, with the ability to assess and track asset condition grades both before and after the required relining works – prioritising those assets with structural and service grade of 4 and 5.It's worth noting that inspecting 85,000 m manually would have been both time-consuming and costly. Additionally, manually reviewing and generating repair recommendations would have posed significant challenges, highlighting the importance of a strategic and streamlined approach.
The Solution
Using VAPAR, Interflow can design and communicate a project structure using the identified location of assets, creating sub-folders for each smaller asset group by area. Allowing the considerable number of assets for assessment to be identified easily.In addition, by utilising pre and post inspection folders the asset condition grades can quickly be reviewed and compared by searching unique Asset ID. Once inspection footage is uploaded and reviewed by the Interflow engineers to the Bega Valley Shire Council shared folder, team members can oversee project status and inspection outcomes (video footage, PDF reports, condition grades) from a single platform.
"VAPAR is on the way to being the perfect Asset Management software available for collaboration between Councils & Contractors"Rob Elizondo - Interflow
Results
The Interflow team have processed over 3,500 videos with over 85,000 metres inspected and uploaded to Bega Valley Shire Council using VAPAR.This has resulted in over 175,000 pipe features and defects identified with a resulting cleaning, lining and sealing program delivered to over 500 assets in the Bega Council area.
Conclusions
Through the utilisation of the VAPAR platform, Interflow has been able to design and implement a lining program for Bega Valley Shire Council’s 500,000 metres sewer network.With a location-based folder structure, uploading pre and post-work inspection footage to communicate and prioritise asset works by structural and service grading of 4 and 5 has become an easier way to manage their work. Interflow were able to deliver over 85,000 metres of inspection reporting directly to a shared cloud storage location, giving Bega Valley Shire Council simple and direct access to asset inspection footage and reporting exports from a single platform.
How Vapar is used in other councils
Trusted by councils & engineering teams around the world
“VAPAR has helped us understand the complexity of using AI for CCTV review, and we are now better positioned to start implementing this technology to improve data quality and asset management processes.”
“As this is a true digital solution we were able to complete the first trial despite the current pandemic through true global collaboration. We have had some extremely promising results from the initial work and look forward with the potential expand the trials.”
“VAPAR provides accurate and effective condition rating to council’s stormwater CCTV video, allowing for significant cost and time savings.”
“We’ve discovered so many improvements and efficiencies using VAPAR as opposed to keeping the status quo. We are really setting ourselves up for success well into the future.”
"The work Trility carried out for CCTV inspection assessments / analysis would usually take months to complete. With the implementation of Vapar, the same task took just weeks.”
United Utilities is always on the lookout for ways we can provide world-class services to our customers. We are interested in partnering with companies like Vapar, who stand out because of their agility, technical skill and willingness to work collaboratively.