Blog: SECBE Awards 2022 finalist - M25 Chamber Cover Renewals - GIS

25 March 2022

Digital sponsored by Artelia UK

M25 Chamber Cover Renewals - GIS (submitted by Jackson Civil Engineering)

Digital Constructing Excellence SECBE Award 2022 finalist

Connect Plus holds the 30 year DBFO (Design, Build, Finance, Operate) contract for maintaining, operating and upgrading the M25 motorway on behalf of National Highways. Comprising 440Km of motorway and arterial link roads around London, the M25 is one of the busiest road networks in Europe, playing a pivotal role as the hub of National Highway’s Strategic Road Network, supporting journeys in and around London and connecting customers with other parts of the UK.

Along with the maintenance of large assets such as the Dartford Crossing, the DBFO contract also involves maintaining thousands of smaller assets such as gantries, technology devices and drainage systems.

In 2021, Connect Plus asked Jackson to undertake a drainage survey which involved inspecting, repairing and replacing, where necessary, 1050 individual manhole covers across the network. A seemingly straightforward task, however, a number of challenges were involved that have been solved by the use of digital technology.

The real time data from Both the GIS / NOMS system and the Power BI dashboard have produced several key benefits throughout the project lifecycle:

• The GIS / NOMS armed the Jackson team with an accurate and visual tool to facilitate conversations with other project teams to establish whether road space sharing was viable
• Once the viability of road space sharing was established, the tools enabled more efficient planning of both teams works on the night
• The GIS/ NOMS also allowed the team to exploit every opportunity to share road space, enabling them to complete the project within 12 months
• The Power BI dashboard made real time data available to the client without placing an additional administrative burden on the delivery team
• As the project progressed, the team were able to identify clusters of defects. With further investigation, this has enabled them to identify the causes, such as original methods of construction, or different ground conditions. This helped inform the budgets for the remainder of the project and has also provided the teams with valuable insight into future maintenance schedules. For example, if the data shows that manhole covers on concrete sections of road are more likely to fail in the future, Connect Plus can adjust its future maintenance schedules to account for this.

By utilising an existing GIS of the M25 to plot the locations of each individual manhole cover on the network, the team were then able to integrate the GIS with the existing NOMS (Network Occupancy Management System) to identify opportunities to share road space closures with other teams on the network. By integrating these two digital assets, the team reduced disruption to motorists by sharing 242 existing closures, reduced risk to the workforce by saving 36,000 additional person-hours on the network and generated a direct financial saving of £445,675 to Connect Plus in reduced traffic management costs.

Key achievements:

• By integrating these two digital assets, the team were able to exploit every possible opportunity and shared 242 existing closures, reduced risk to the workforce by saving 36,000 additional person-hours on the network and generated a direct financial saving of £445,675 in reduced traffic management costs.
• As the project progressed, the team were able to identify clusters of defects. With further investigation, this has enabled them to identify the causes, such as original methods of construction, or different ground conditions. This helped inform the budgets for the remainder of the project and has also provided the teams with valuable insight into future maintenance schedules. For example, if the data shows that manhole covers on concrete sections of road are more likely to fail in the future, Connect Plus can adjust its future maintenance schedules to account for this.
• The Power BI dashboard made real time data available to the client without placing an additional administrative burden on the delivery team.

• Client: Connect Plus
• Project Partners: TechJoint, Connect Plus Services, Atkins

Find out who wins at the Constructing Excellence SECBE Awards 2022 Ceremony on Thurs 30th June 2022.

About the Digital Award (sponsored by Artelia UK): 

Digital embraces BIM, GIS, Big Data and other evolving technological advancements.  Technology has transformed the world we live in and has potential to revolutionise the construction industry. This category rewards organisations, projects or initiatives that have adopted, advanced and achieved excellence in Digital. More info

>> Find out more about the other Constructing Excellence SECBE Awards finalists here