Bridgend County Borough Council has implemented a new mobile data collection system to improve the management of highways maintenance.  Supplied by Mayrise Systems and using HP 5550 iPAQ devices, the system has replaced paper forms with an electronic solution that links to Bridgend's MAYRISE highway services management system.

The system is being used for highway inspections, with optimised schedules and routes calculated in MAYRISE then loaded onto the iPAQs for use by highways inspectors in the field.  Screens guide the inspectors from location to location, with electronic forms prompting for information to be recorded.

“Inspectors no longer need to spend time writing up their report and it is so much quicker that in one case we found we were 4 weeks ahead on inspections” says Derek Cooper, Bridgend’s Highway Systems Technician.   

Bridgend had to undertake extensive work to build a comprehensive street database.  Starting with the National Street Gazetteer (NSG), MAYRISE-generated ‘streets’ were created to supplement the NSG. Bridgend set schedules according to the different periods of inspection.  This process was made easier thanks to the integrated mapping system MapNow^TM, that allowed everything to be mapped and displayed on-screen.

“This new system has really cleaned up all of our records given legible, consistent information from which accurate information and statistics can be generated. With defects it is particularly valuable as we can produce complete and professional reports to demonstrate that inspections were undertaken; something that will stand up in court” says Derek Cooper.

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