Campbelltown City Council Stormwater Asset Management with VAPAR
- 40km of pipeline inspections evaluated
- Yielded 11,500+ pipe features
- Found 250+ assets with Service grade of 4 or above
As a rapidly growing council in the state of NSW, Campbelltown City has a developing need for detailed condition assessment of their vast Stormwater network & new asset adoption due to growing population.
Campbelltown stormwater asset engineers and project managers continuously inspect their pipelines and need efficient ways to review footage and formulate decision plans for the required works.
The Campbelltown Council team have engaged VAPAR for four years, to facilitate and review their Stormwater inspections and to implement their asset improvement plan using the VAPAR.Solutions platform.
Project Snapshot
Campbelltown Council utilised the VAPAR platform for a comprehensive review of their expansive 700 km network, coordinating with external inspection contractors to identify key catchment projects and assets requiring rehabilitation.
Their goal is to develop and implement a 10-year asset improvement plan for new & old assets requiring engineering works. Forming part of a detailed asset adoption and rehabilitation plan for coming years.
About the client
Campbelltown City is located in Sydney's south-western suburbs, between 30 and 55 kilometres from the Sydney CBD. Campbelltown occupies 31,133 hectares of land area with a population density of 5.49 persons per hectare.
More than 170,943 people across 34 suburbs now call Campbelltown home, making Campbelltown one of the 10 largest local government authorities in NSW.
The Challenge & Opportunity
Campbelltown Council manages over 701 km of stormwater pipes, with an additional 32 km added in recent years. With a replacement cost estimated at $306 million, strategic asset condition assessment and renewal planning are critical.
As a designated priority urban growth area in NSW, Campbelltown's population is projected to reach 250,000 by 2038, necessitating expanded stormwater infrastructure and placing additional strain on existing networks, especially with increased weather events due to climate change.
In response, the council's asset management team has developed a 10-year stormwater asset improvement plan, which includes:
- Proactive CCTV inspections of aging pipes, targeting 20 km of network annually, with adjustments to useful life as needed.
- Updating the register of blockages and inspections in the asset management (AM) system for reactive maintenance.
- Refining the condition modelling process for stormwater assets in the council’s predictor software as more current data becomes available.
Importantly, as the population & housing demand grows, the council must ensure that new assets adopted meet longevity expectations (average lifespan of 170 years) during installation, requiring diligent reporting of identified defects.
Campbelltown’s implementation of this framework will require efficient access to inspection results and integration of data into their broader asset management systems.
The Solution
Campbelltown have now been uploading footage into the VAPAR solutions platform their fourth consecutive year. Using folder structures organised by catchment area & year of inspection. The Campbelltown engineering team in collaboration with VAPAR engineers, reviewed and provided detailed defect reports for approximately 1800 inspections.
VAPAR’s AI processing translated the video footage into a series of reportable images, facilitating quick reviews. This enabled engineers to identify over 11,500 pipe defects and features, compiling them into industry-standard reports for works evaluation.
Prioritisation & organisation of the asset inspections was performed using the WSAA 2020 reporting standards for defect identification & structural and service grading, inherent within the platform.
As a result, the council can efficiently generate repair decisions regarding assets with reported defects from new asset installation and condition assessment requiring urgent attention, addressing higher risk assets within network locations. Setting the stage for contractor-led rehabilitation works.
Results
The 40km of pipeline inspections evaluated using VAPAR yielded over 11,500 pipe features, detailed both online using cloud-hosted software, and catalogued PDF reports. This extensive work was completed over 4 years, identifying more than 250 assets with a Structural or Service grade of 4 or above.
The Council’s asset and project engineers are now leveraging VAPAR’s cloud storage system for collaborative rehabilitation planning. This unified system provides complete online access to inspection videos and PDFs, streamlining the delivery process for both internal and external stakeholders and allows data integration into their greater asset management systems.
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.