Highways technology firm Yotta DCL has helped Southwark Council reduce the amount of money it spends on network repairs and maintenance.
The local authority is working with Yotta to develop a capital investment programme. Southwark will use Horizons, Yotta DCL’s visualised asset management platform, backed by professional services support to help it make the best decisions for its network and users. With Yotta DCL’s web-based technology and technical support, the council will be able to target work schemes more precisely, resulting in better return on investment and improving its network.
Mick Lucas, public realm asset manager, said: “Horizons provides information in an easy to understand format, which was one of its key attractions to us, particularly in helping us with communicating with council members and the public. Horizons also enables us to sweat our assets, which means we can select the best treatments to maximise our resources. The system uses ‘whole-of-life-costings’ methodology enabling us to get best value from available funds.”
Southwark weights its network according to priorities to users. Using Horizons, the council can identify and map the roads and pathways that carry bus routes, major pedestrian walking routes and bicycle networks, prioritising them according to usage and value to highway users.
“With Horizons we can target schemes where they will have the most impact and return on our money. We can overlay our bus, walking and cycling routes on the network map, to give us an instant view of our priority assets. We can also model the deterioration over time. It is so much easier with Horizons to get an accurate visual overview of the network. It means we can spend our time developing the investment programme and align works with our budgets and other funding that will be available to us in the future,” adds Lucas.
