City of Ryde & VAPAR - Case Study
The Challenge & Opportunity
As one of Sydney’s largest municipal councils, City of Ryde manages around 250 km of stormwater pipes, which service 130,000 local residents.
Each year, City of Ryde proactively inspects sections of their network each year using footage obtained from CCTV Cameras. This footage is obtained from external contracting organisations, and is used to assess the condition of pipe infrastructure and help prevent unplanned outages affecting their customers. Data from this footage is also used to develop flow-on analysis such as cost forecasting and program planning.
Due to the huge amount of labour required, asset owners typically review limited percentages of their pipe networks annually as part of this proactive approach. Obtained footage is reviewed by external contractors, with the asset owner auditing sections of footage to confirm the accuracy of condition assessments.
As a forward-thinking, innovative Council, City of Ryde were searching for a software solution which would allow them to review larger segments of their stormwater network, and also audit the entirety of captured footage to ensure that condition data for assets reached the maximum achievable level of accuracy.
City of Ryde and VAPAR - Working Together
For the last 2 years, City of Ryde engaged VAPAR to implement an AI-based, automated CCTV review process which would allow them to inspect larger segments of their stormwater pipe network annually, and audit all footage obtained as part of this process.
The project proved immensely successful in achieving both of these outcomes, allowing City of Ryde to inspect over 15 km of their stormwater network in 6 months (compared to their previous rate of 5 km per year). By using the VAPAR platform, City of Ryde also eliminated 400 hours of manual CCTV review work, with VAPAR’s automated AI models reviewing 100% of inspected pipe footage, also digitising over 6000 features, nodes and defects.
City of Ryde arranged for the data outputs of VAPAR to be customised to meet their own financial planning needs; ensuring that repair decisions were made in accordance with Council adopted Asset Management policies. All user actions on the platform, including any edits, could be tracked for auditing purposes and drive user accountability.
Additionally, Council Engineers worked closely with VAPAR to export all these results into a format that streamlined the import of the defect and condition data into Council’s Stormwater Asset Management System, Assetic. which enabled City of Ryde to make more informed strategic decisions on expenditure allocation for their stormwater renewal programs.
"VAPAR has been a great addition to the City of Ryde stormwater inspection program, providing accurate and effective condition rating Council’s stormwater CCTV video, allowing for significant cost and time savings."
What's Next?
Satisfied that they would now be able to proactively inspect larger segments of their stormwater network (and have associated data outputs customised to optimise their asset planning processes), City of Ryde have continued using VAPAR’s platform.
Through their efforts toward adopting innovative processes, City of Ryde is now able to receive data relating to asset condition which is directly aligned with their asset plannng strategy, allowing them to achieve the best possible community outcomes from their local government funding.
VAPAR has efficiently rated Council’s stormwater CCTV video, allowing for significant cost and time reducing the labour costs of reviewing the CCTV internally. The information provided is tailored to Ryde’s requirements and is useful for the programming of future capital works.