Automated highway asset management: Confirm saves the day

Maintaining road safety depends on connected systems, clear visibility and the ability to turn data into action quickly, ensuring proactive maintenance. In this piece, Chris Thompson, Sales Director at Brightly Software, shares a story on how the Confirm asset management solution can help councils deliver results by solving the most complex issues that come with highway asset management.

When it comes to keeping people safe on the roads, local councils and highways authorities have to consider countless interconnected elements and manage them all with efficiency.

Take the example of potholes. On the face of it, and as the public and the media think of it, it’s a simple case of a fault that needs fixing – and fixing fast! But in the joined-up world of highways asset management, there is far more to consider than simply sending out a crew.

It can be difficult to fully appreciate the level of complexity that lies behind what might seem, on the face of things, a simple road repair. To illustrate this, let me tell you a story (inspired by real events)…

Chapter One: The Incident

Meet Chris. Chris is a 51-year-old man who lives in the centre of an historic market town with his wife, his two sons and their dog. Recently, he’d gone through something of a midlife crisis, and decided to buy a new bicycle. He hadn’t cycled in a while, but he wanted to get fit and lose a bit of weight. One fine Saturday morning, Chris decided to take his new set of wheels out for a spin. It was a glorious sunny morning and the first fine day after a week of heavy rain – so he was keen to seize the opportunity.

But Chris ran into trouble before he’d travelled more than a few yards. As he left his house on his bike and made his way down the local High Street, he went through a large puddle in the middle of the road. And what he couldn’t see below the flooded road surface, he soon felt in his bones as he hit a large, hidden pothole.

Shocked, he pulled over and inspected his brand-new bike for damage, and as he did so, he spotted the reason for the puddle: a gully, blocked with leaves and lots of water from the bad weather earlier in the week.

Chris, still shaken by the incident, walked his damaged bike home and dutifully logged onto the local council website to report the incident. With this successfully done, he waited for a reply - and turned his attention to bicycle repairs in the meantime.

Chapter Two: The Response

The next character in our story is Richard. Richard is Head Of Highways at the local council. He saw Chris's notification pop up.

As it happened, Richard knew that the council was already planning to do some resurfacing work on the High Street the following week, so this case was going to be resolved quickly. The planned works were scheduled because new AI road technology and scanning equipment employed across the county's road network had identified the local High Street as in need of resurfacing.

The following week, Chris noticed some temporary traffic lights going up on the High Street near the site of the incident. The work was completed in just a few days and the road was completely resurfaced. There was not a pothole in sight, the gullies were clear, and Chris was now a very happy man. To round it off, he then received a text from the council, direct to his mobile, informing him of the details and closing the works.

Chapter Three: The backstory

So far, we’ve told a simple story of a complaint and a timely response. In this chapter, let’s look in more detail at what made that rapid response possible…

Chris’s complaint was dealt with almost immediately – because AI-assisted, smart asset management tools had already identified that structural repairs were necessary on that stretch of road. Smart systems to scan and analyse roads fed data into a central asset management system, which then enabled the council to make informed decisions, with full knowledge of the condition of the wider road network.

However, before that scheme of works could take place, the council needed to put in place a TTRO (a Temporary Traffic Regulation Order) to close down one lane and to manage traffic flow on the High Street. Historically, that would be a lengthy process, but again, with the right system, this was a simple business process.

But there were still more considerations to keep in mind, because a High Street is an important retail and commercial hub – and there were multiple paid parking spaces along it. To protect a vital source of revenue, and to minimise potential costs and lost revenue to local businesses, it was essential for the council to complete the works as quickly and as sustainably as possible by using smart scheduling tools.

Naturally, there was a system for this as well – which could be managed through a central asset management platform. This joined-up solution enabled the council to ensure that the right road gang arrived on site with the right materials, at the right time.

But that’s not all. Before the gang could even start work, another major process needed to be completed. The gang needed to be sure what was underground before a single spade broke the surface. Through another system, they were able to do just that – and they got a clear and up-to-date picture of all the underground assets on that stretch of road to ensure that as the ground was broken, no electrical cables or pipes were broken with it.

Chapter Four: Accounting for the unexpected

Every good story needs a moment of high drama, and this one is no exception. While the repair works were being carried out, there was a near miss one afternoon, as a car ignored the temporary red signal and nearly ran over a workman. Thankfully, no actual harm was done, but the incident had to be reported.

Not a problem. There was a system for that too and the incident was logged in seconds.

When the job was completed soon afterwards, it was closed in the system, the TTRO was removed, and Chris got his much anticipated update that the incident he flagged had been resolved.

Chapter Five: Conclusion

The story above demonstrates the digitisation and automation of highway asset management. In the not-so-distant past, all of the steps we addressed in the story were carried out by filling in paper forms and manually updating spreadsheets. In many councils, all or some still are. And where this is the case, getting an accurate overall picture is effectively impossible.

And, finally, this is also a story about a third major character we’ve referenced, but haven’t yet formally introduced: Confirm asset management system, from Brightly Software, a Siemens company.

Confirm is the glue that holds this narrative together. It’s a smart system that works seamlessly with multiple highly specialised solutions to automate workflows and take all the confusion out of a complex, multi-step process – to ultimately deliver rapid results.

To learn more about Confirm, visit: https://www.brightlysoftware.com/en-gb/products/confirm