Symology Enable Rotherham's Network Management Team to Secure an Extra £5m Funding

Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council is projecting long-term efficiency savings after allocating an extra five million pounds of funding to its A-road network. The action was taken thanks to the condition projection and budget modelling features within Symology's Insight for Pavement Management solution.

Insight for Pavement Management is a fully integrated solution that can create projections of future road conditions, depending on levels of proposed funding, and present them as easy to understand, colour-coded maps. All the complex underlying data is shown as a simple street-plan, with roads marked red, amber or green, depending on whether they will be in a critical state, need moderate attention or still be in good condition, after a set period of time and with a given budget.

Rotherham has invested in Insight for Pavement  Management and the result is a validated increase in allocated budgets.

'The Insight system brings together a huge amount of data that's quite difficult for most people to understand', says Stephen Finley, Senior Engineer at Rotherham MBC. 'Being able to quickly and easily present it on a GIS with a simple traffic-light colour coding system is a real help.'

Symology is one of only a handful of suppliers that can offer a UKPMS accredited solution, and Insight for Pavement Management is unique because it utilises the UKPMS Tranche 3 Condition Projection algorithms. These forecast deterioration from year to year, starting with an assessment of the current network condition and applying the costs of all recommended treatments against the available budgets, in priority, until all funds are exhausted. Maintenance deficits are carried forward to the next year, and the process is repeated. Symology is the only UKPMS supplier that has developed ways to work around both the technical and engineering problems that existed with the original condition projection black-box.

Back in 1997 Rotherham was one of the first of a handful of forward-looking Symology customers to adopt Insight for Pavement Management and yet, as Stephen says: 'There were no significant problems with implementation. Symology worked with us and converted existing data into Insight format. All our surveys used to be walked and when we moved to machine surveys we had to create another network. Insight handles and manages the two networks side-by-side admirably.'

'The biggest challenge was linking the road network to maps. The Symology GIS module offers pretty good automatic linking but I would recommend taking the time to individually link the roads. It did take some time to link everything but it has paid dividends in the long-run.'

Rotherham Council has been a Symology customer for more than 20 years and started using their software for pavement management in 1997. Stephen says: 'At the time, we chose Symology because its software was the best on the market and, as far as I'm concerned, it still is. It is extremely reliable and the company always keeps up to date with legislative changes, new codes of practice and the latest UKPMS rule-sets. They are also always ready to listen to our needs and if required develop further functionality.'

All Symology modules are used at Rotherham, giving them a fully-integrated Highway Asset Management solution that covers everything from highways to street works, and bridges to pavement management. Extensive use is made of Symology's Insight Mobile software, enabling all kinds of inspections, condition surveys and maintenance defects to be collected out-in-the-field. Having a single mobile software platform with one consistent data set offers strong efficiency savings and the modular approach has enabled the Council to increase functionality as required over time.

Symology provides free software updates every two months and new releases every 9-12 months as part of the service. That means that software covering changes in requirements is provided at no extra charge.

Moreover, the company prides itself on offering knowledgeable advice from consultants who listen to customers, and have strong experience of the processes behind the software and the regulations that drive it. That means Symology is constantly looking forward and coming up with solutions for future challenges. For example, it is about to release enhancements to its Maintenance Standards and Asset Valuation modules in order to meet the new CIPFA requirements, which have only recently been finalised

Symology is well positioned to lead the industry as UKPMS changes and develops. Stephen says: 'I've been most impressed by their personal involvement with us as an Authority. They're approachable and listen to what you've got to say. Technical support is great and someone is always available to assist with any problems.'

The latest of those changes have seen Symology offer the Insight system as a managed service, available over the internet via a secure web portal. At the time of writing, Rotherham MBC is in the process of migrating their Insight system to Symology's Managed Service environment.

Stephen Finley is Assessment and Design Senior Engineer within the Network Management Group of Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council, and is also a member of the Roads Board Advisory Group.