REPORT ON VISUAL INSPECTION OF ROAD NETWORK SUMMARY This report is to illustrate the advancement achieved in the nature of capture, editing & distribution of data being employed for the visual inspection of the road network, to provide maintenance programs to Ballarat Works. BACKGROUND A requirement of the road maintenance contract is to undertake visual inspection/s of the entire road network, with the express purpose of recording defects in the infrastructure and presenting these in the form of a report/program of works. This has been carried out in a variety of ways, from hand written notes to data-logger style of recording. The current inspection has been undertaken using state of the art cyber technology, utilising up to ten satellites via a TUSANI Global Positioning System *( Ref 1) and the Free to Air Differential Beacon located at Cape Shanke Victoria, to achieve sub-metre accuracy in the capture of defect locality data This has been linked to the Geographical Information System stored in a lap-top computer, loaded with an asset management software package (Starpal*Ref 2 ), which also enables the assignment of attributes to each unique point recorded. The asset management expertise and software knowledge of Brian Wright from Council's Infrastructure Planning & Management [Assets] Department lead to exhaustive investigation into Software packages available, with the resultant Starpal system considered the most appropriate and efficient system for Council's needs. The continual system development will be effected by monitoring the City of Ballarat's involvement in this use of leading edge technology in the field of asset management. The illustration below indicates a typical view of the data capture screen of the lap-top used in the field to record defects in the road network.
Programs for use in conjunction with down-loaded data have been developed by Brian Marsh of Council's Information [Technology] Department and have provided the ability to manipulate this information into extremely useful spread sheets for issue to the maintenance personnel at Ballarat Works. The spread sheets can be issued electronically and in hard copy.The information contained includes unique identification for each point, type/quantity of defect, location (street name, segment and suburb)
These spread sheets combined with the added bonus of being able to locate each unique point on Council's Latitude information system to enable specific site identification has resulted in an extremely useful, versatile and user friendly asset maintenance system.
It is envisaged that the defects will eventually be uploaded directly into the MAXIMO Asset Management Software as Works Requests. The Works Requests and Works Tracking Module of Maximo will be used to then: Record works Track the progress of works Cost works Maintain a works and request history Together with the condition history of assets this information will be used to make more informed strategic decisions on budgeting and programming for infrastructure works. Contact Details for Brian Wright (03) 5320 5594 * Ref 1 &ldots;Micronics Wearable TUSANI (pat applied) DGPS system www.micronicsgps.com *Ref 2 ...Australian distributor: Micronics GPS |
