Water utility sharpens up roadworks scheduling

Severn Trent Water keeps electronic tabs on highway authority regulations

Severn Trent Water (STW) has installed a management system to improve communication with highway authorities when planning roadworks.

The utility firm has put the Exor Street Works Manager technology in place in advance of the Department for Transport (DfT) bringing in legislation that requires utility firms and local authorities to obtain permission before digging up roads (Computing, 27 October).

STW, which issues 220,000 road and streetwork notices each year, will use the Exor information management system to communicate with more than 50 local authorities that maintain roads in its region.

The system, based on Oracle’s database, will co-ordinate and schedule roadworks being carried out in the area and communicate electronically between local and central authorities.

Jon Greensill, information systems project manager at STW, says the technology will help reduce the chances of incurring fines from highway authorities, by alerting the company to possible regulatory problems.

‘We could soon rack up a large bill in fines if we were not careful,’ he said.

‘The Exor system keeps tabs on the notices, deals with all the rules and regulations and alerts us to any area where we might potentially receive a fine.’

The system will also interface with STW’s in-house works management system, which runs on an IBM DB2 database and notifies and schedules road worker and planning activity.

‘If someone raises a job in our works management system it will automatically link to Exor and tell us what kind of notices we need and then send them over the internet to the authority,’ said Greensill.

As part of the forthcoming regulations on roadworks, STW might also have to add mapping data to requests that it sends to highways authorities. The Exor system will also be easier for STW to integrate with Oracle Spatial and Locator technology when the time comes, he says.

The Exor system links to Ordnance Survey data so that STW can pinpoint exact locations of works and where storage facilities will be placed.

STW is also updating its financial systems using Oracle’s application software.

*Utility firm Three Valleys Water installed a similar system from Exor late last year to help manage its roadwork maintenance projects (Computing, 27 January). Chris Hone, IT manager at Three Valleys Water, says the system will save the firm money by removing the need for expensive software development or upgrades at a later stage.