How Blacktown City Council transformed stormwater asset management with AI insights
- 150,000m of inspection footage
- Identified 20,000+ pipe features
- Insights informed capital works programs
Blacktown City Council, the largest local government area in NSW, faces the challenge of managing an expanding stormwater network across a rapidly growing urban area. With a population projected to exceed 600,000 by 2041, the Council’s stormwater infrastructure plays a critical role in supporting safe, resilient, and sustainable urban development.
Since 2022, Blacktown has embarked on a strategic stormwater renewal program, using the VAPAR platform to review over 150 km of stormwater CCTV inspection footage, identify network defects, and prioritize capital works investments. This data-driven approach aims to improve asset performance, extend asset life, and reduce long-term maintenance costs.
Project Snapshot
- Since 2022, Blacktown Council has uploaded ~150,000 m of stormwater inspection footage into the VAPAR platform.
- The review identified over 20,000 pipe features across the stormwater network.
- Data insights directly informed capital works programs under the 2024–2025 Operational Plan.
- A robust, evidence-backed approach now underpins the Council’s stormwater renewal investments.
About the client
Blacktown City Council serves a diverse community of over 435,000 residents across 54 suburbs, making it the most populous council in New South Wales. With a Gross Regional Product (GRP) of $22.6 billion and a strong focus on innovation, sustainability, and equity, the Council leads large-scale infrastructure projects to support urban growth. Guided by its “Our Blacktown 2041” strategic vision, the Council is committed to providing high-quality infrastructure, services, and environmental management that meet the needs of its growing and diverse population.
The Challenge / Opportunity
Blacktown’s aging and expanding stormwater network faced several challenges:
- Limited visibility into the condition of buried stormwater assets.
- Maintenance work driven by visible failures, rather than proactive renewal.
- Infrastructure pressures from rapid population growth and urban expansion in Western Sydney.
The opportunity lay in transforming how stormwater asset data was captured, analysed, and actioned to create a proactive, efficient, and financially sustainable capital works program.
The Solution
Blacktown Council partnered with Total Drain Group (TDG) & VAPAR to digitize and transform its stormwater asset management approach:
- Comprehensive Inspection Uploads Since 2022, Total Drain Group has systematically uploaded ~150,000 m of stormwater CCTV footage to the VAPAR platform for council access, leveraging AI and machine learning to automate defect identification and asset condition grading.
- Detailed Feature and Defect Mapping The system analysed over 20,000 pipe features (including junctions, connections, and access points) and rapidly flagging pipe defects that need attention, giving engineers an unprecedented, data-rich view of the network’s current health.
- Prioritized Capital Works Planning Using VAPAR’s risk-based decision models, Blacktown was able to prioritise which assets required immediate rehabilitation (e.g., relining, patching, or dig-ups) versus those needing routine maintenance or no action. This enabled the Council to confidently allocate resources to the most critical areas, optimizing the use of its $7.7 million drainage improvements budget (as highlighted in its 2024/25 capital works program).
- Integration with Long-Term Planning The insights gained were fed into the Council’s broader infrastructure strategies, supporting ongoing multi-year works, ensuring alignment with population growth, climate resilience goals, and long-term sustainability objectives.
“The VAPAR platform is simple to use and interactive. Its AI capabilities have reduced the time and cost of managing our CCTV inspections. The VAPAR team is responsive and professional, and regular monthly meetings ensured timely issue resolution across all parties.”
Dilip Tiwari, Asset Engineer
Conclusion
Blacktown City Council and Total Drain Group’s use of VAPAR exemplifies how data-driven asset management can deliver tangible financial and operational benefits. By harnessing AI and machine learning to unlock the value of inspection data, the Council has moved from a reactive to a proactive approach, ensuring that every dollar spent improves network performance, reduces risk, and supports sustainable urban growth.
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.