Case Study

Clarence City Council

The City of Clarence, with a population of 50,000 people, is located on the eastern shore of the River Derwent, across the Tasman Bridge from Hobart.

Challenge

Clarence City Council publicly tendered a project to collect asset condition data to feed into their asset maintenance program. The work required a complete visual inspection of more than 300 kms of footpaths, with data required to be compatible with Council’s asset management system.
The challenge was to develop a system and methodology that ensured accuracy and compatibility while meeting Council’s budget and tight timeframe.

Solution

There were two main aspects to the solution. Firstly the data compatibility. Stornoway engaged a Spatial Software Engineer capable of supplying the required GIS and GPS systems and associated hardware for data capture, as well as working with council to ensure the data capture forms were consistent with their system requirements. Secondly the data collection. Once we had the systems, we had to find a suitable and reliable method of collecting the data. It was estimated we would only average about 3 kms per day on foot and this might vary significantly due to terrain and weather. We searched and found a suitable robust Golf buggy, battery powered and small enough to travel most footpaths. With some minor modifications to the power system, we were able us to get a full days work from the hand held computer and GPS unit.

Results

The work was completed in 20 working days, including a delay to add addition data requested by the Council. This was well inside their contractual requirement.
Feedback from Council is that the data is fully compatible with their asset management system.