Technology that monitors highway equipment such as street lighting and drainage to aid future maintenance is being used for the first time on Highways England’s £88.4m Port of Immingham improvement scheme.
Contractors working on the A160 Port of Immingham improvement scheme are using the RedBite asset tool, developed by a Cambridge-based company, to tag Highways England owned assets. Once the product is tagged - the data is securely transmitted to a webpage where all data relating to that piece of equipment or asset is recorded for future use.
This is the first time the technology has been used on a road project. Items which have been tagged so far along the A160 include lighting columns, signs, pavements, culverts and gullies.
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The technology uses Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, Quick Response (QR) Codes and GPS tags.
RFID involves the use of radio waves to convert and transmit information from an RFID tag to a digital device – such as a smartphone. Alerts can also be sent out when faults are reported on any particular piece of equipment.
Ben Ridgeon, Highways England project manager, said: “Managing and tagging assets using intelligent software has many benefits, not only in recording the location of that equipment but, more crucially, in monitoring that asset in the future.
“With such heavy usage on our assets, wear and tear is inevitable. By using a system where we can record and maintain a large amount of data on a range of different equipment, we can improve accuracy on the condition of those assets.”
Earlier this week Highways England launched a new innovation strategy that sets out how £150 million will be spent on harnessing new technology.
