Slough Borough Council has invested in a combined Highways Management solution from Mayrise Systems. The systems will enhance the efficiency of Slough’s highways inspection programme, improve the quality of defect reporting and increase the speed of remedial works. The two-part solution consists of MAYRISE Highways, the centralised, Internet ready software for the management of highways maintenance and MAYRISE Inspections System, the mobile solution for live reporting highways defects.

MAYRISE Highways, hosted by Slough Accord the public-private partnership for environmental services, is used to generate routine highway inspection schedules for the team of field based engineers. Using HP iPAQ Pocket PCs, the Council’s Highways Inspectors record the position and characteristics of a defect via an easy to use series of drop down menu options and tick boxes.

Once complete the defect record is automatically transmitted to the central server using high speed mobile communications; GPRS, reviewed by office base highways personal and forwarded as applicable to the relevant contractor or service provider. Authorised personnel can remotely access the centralised highways database using a secure log in from any web enabled PC or handheld device giving managers end-to-end visibility of highways management information.

"Using the combined solution from Mayrise Systems we have dramatically increased the efficiency of our highways inspection programme," said Matt Davey, Head of Highways at Slough Borough Council. "The quality and completeness of the information captured in the field coupled with the efficiency of data capture and the reduction in the administrative resource required to process the information has led to a noticeable improvement in the overall time taken to identify, process and ultimately resolve problems in the highway."

The Council’s Highways Engineering Team hope to make further improvements in efficiency and service delivery through MAYRISE. "We are planning to supplement the existing inspection schedules with detailed mapping from MAYRISE MapNow making it easier for inspectors to accurately record the position of defects in the field," continued Davey. "In addition, as well as automatically processing works orders to our approved contractors and Section 81 defects to statutory undertakers we are hoping, by linking to other Council databases, to be able to process notices to residents and businesses."

Slough Borough Council, home to Europe’s largest single ownership trading estate and of course birth place of the Mars confectionary bar, is a compact urban centre covering just 32.5 sqkm. Slough Borough Council has recently published it’s second Local Transport Plan which aims, over five year period supported by a £25 million capital spend, to tackle a range of issues such as congestion, road safety, air quality and other environmental concerns.

Reader enquiries to Mark Clarke at Mayrise Systems: Tel. +44 (0)1453 827 400

www.mayrise.co.uk