Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council is utilising Yotta’s Horizons highway asset management platform to improve the planning and coordination of its highways maintenance programme. One of the smallest local authorities in Wales, Merthyr Tydfil Council is responsible for all aspects of highways maintenance. Working within a £2 million budget, the Council must ensure the effective repair and maintenance of 333 kilometres of highway network. By using Horizons, staff can model the effect and cost of different treatment sets to inform both short and long term Works Programmes.
“Prior to the introduction of Horizons we had some idea of the overall condition of the highway network from our Pavement Management System,” commented Meirion Williams, Highways Network Group Leader at Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council. “However, this just gave us a Red / Amber / Green status. We still had to manually work out schemes, consider the impact and cost of different treatments, and often as not make site visits.”
“Using Horizons, this process has been automated; making it easier, faster and more evidence based. This allows us to consider multiple scenarios at the desktop, comparing both short term impact and long term gain in the context of budget restrictions.”
Merthyr Tydfil Council uses Horizons to inform the highway maintenance decision making process. Using condition data from the Welsh Assembly Government, the Council can model the impact and cost of different treatment sets, for example a short term repair which may last six to seven years versus a more expensive total resurface. The use of Horizons is also reducing the need for costly and time consuming site visits as data can be scrutinised at the desktop.
“With highways infrastructure commonly accepted as one of the most valuable assets for Councils, it is imperative that we sustain this resource, and therefore conserve its value, and provide evidence to support decisions that are made in relation to its maintenance,” added Jeremy Morgan, Head of the Engineering and Highways Division at Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council. “Horizons, with support from Yotta, allows us to achieve this in an efficient and effective way.”
Merthyr Tydfil Council also uses hosted street works software from Yotta. The Mayrise Online solution records street works activities across the County Borough, co-ordinates works and events that affect the highway and generates Key Performance Indicator (KPI) and management reports.
Yotta will be presenting its asset management solutions at the ‘Working with Wales’ conference, which is taking place on the 17th June 2015 at the Pavilion Conference Venue located in the centre of Llandrindod Wells. Industry keynote speakers as well as real world case studies from Welsh Local Authorities will combine to present a vision for infrastructure asset management in Wales. For further information or to register an interest in attending please email Nikhaela.King@yotta.co.uk.
