Wannon Water: Powering Smarter Sewer Renewals with AI-Driven Condition Intelligence
- 800+ inspections processed efficiently
- 40+ km of sewer pipeline digitally assessed
- 65+ assets prioritised for repair and renewal
Wannon Water provides essential water and sewer services across 23,000 square kilometres of south-west Victoria. Supporting more than 34,000 customers, the organisation manages extensive regional sewer networks servicing coastal towns, agricultural communities, and growing urban centres including Warrnambool.
Under its Urban Water Strategy, Wannon Water has committed to strengthening infrastructure resilience, protecting the environment, and delivering long-term value to customers. As part of this direction and to support major capital works programs such as the Warrnambool Sewer Network Upgrade, the utility required faster, more defensible condition intelligence to guide renewal decisions.
The Challenge
Managing sewer infrastructure across large regional areas presents unique pressures:
- Ageing pipelines requiring accurate condition visibility
- Infiltration and inflow risks impacting environmental performance
- Regulatory compliance obligations
- Significant capital investment programs requiring evidence-based prioritisation
- Manual CCTV review processes slowing inspection-to-decision workflows
Wannon Water needed a scalable solution to process inspection data efficiently, prioritise high-risk assets, and strengthen the business case for targeted renewal investment.
The VAPAR Solution
By implementing the VAPAR platform, Wannon Water transformed its sewer inspection workflow into a streamlined, data-driven process.
800+ Inspections Digitised
Over 800 sewer inspections were uploaded into VAPAR, creating a consolidated and searchable condition database.
40+ Kilometres of Sewer Network Assessed
More than 40 kilometres of pipeline were analysed, delivering a comprehensive digital baseline of network condition.
13,500+ Defects Identified Automatically
VAPAR’s AI-powered analytics detected and classified 13,500+ structural and service defects, including cracks, fractures, root intrusion, infiltration, and joint displacement — dramatically reducing manual review time while improving consistency.
65+ Assets Allocated to Renewal Programs
Using VAPAR’s Repair Decisions feature, Wannon Water applied automated grading and rehabilitation recommendations to identify 65+ assets for repair or renewal.
Assets were efficiently categorised into:
- Immediate intervention
- Rehabilitation (lining or patching)
- Scheduled renewal
- Ongoing monitoring
This structured prioritisation workflow strengthened capital planning and supported targeted investment decisions.
Supporting the Warrnambool Trunk Program
Inspection intelligence generated through VAPAR directly informed renewal forecasting and investment justification for the Warrnambool Trunk Sewer condition assessment and renewal program.
Rather than relying solely on age-based modelling, Wannon Water leveraged verified structural condition data to:
- Target high-risk sections of network
- Reduce overflow and failure risk
- Strengthen environmental protection outcomes
- Improve capital allocation confidence
This integration of inspection analytics into strategic planning ensures renewal funding is directed where it delivers the greatest risk reduction.
The Results
✔ 800+ inspections processed efficiently
✔ 40+ km of sewer pipeline digitally assessed
✔ 13,500+ defects identified and classified
✔ 65+ assets prioritised for repair and renewal
✔ Strengthened evidence base for major capital upgrades
A Smarter Approach to Sewer Asset Management
By adopting VAPAR, Wannon Water has moved from reactive and manual inspection review processes to proactive, intelligence-led asset management.
The result is:
- Faster inspection-to-decision workflows
- Clear, defensible renewal prioritisation
- Reduced environmental risk
- Stronger long-term infrastructure resilience
As Wannon Water continues delivering on its Urban Water Strategy, VAPAR provides the digital foundation to ensure sewer infrastructure investment remains efficient, transparent, and future-ready.
How Vapar is used in other councils
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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.