Lanes Utilities has developed an app that could revolutionise the way water abstraction is carried out by water companies - the app pinpoints 130,000 abstraction points across the Thames Water region and key neighbouring areas.
The app has the potential to greatly reduce the risk of illegal water abstraction, support significant improvement in water leak detection, improve the safety and efficiency of wastewater operations, and reduce the cost of policing illegal abstractions.
The app also provides a platform for water utilities to eventually monitor and charge for abstraction in real time.
A team of Lanes Utilities managers and technical specialists have worked for more than 12 months to develop the app.
Lanes Utilities, part of Lanes Group plc, is now rolling out the water abstraction app on its FieldViewer digital operational platform, developed by Techfinity, to support its wastewater network services contract for Thames Water.
Across the UK, wastewater maintenance contractors abstract mains water needed for sewer and drainage system cleaning tasks tens of thousands of times every day.
Abstraction licences are agreed locally with water companies. However, accurate maps of approved hydrants and wash out points are not made available. If the wrong ones are used, including ones owned by a neighbouring water provider, wastewater companies invariably face heavy fines.
By chance, thousands of photographs, uploaded to FieldViewer by Lanes wastewater engineers when they abstracted water, could also be used.
Each image contained the hydrant's GPS coordinates and revealed which water company owned it through a system of colour-coding.
Once the rough data set was gathered together the team had to place the right information about the 130,000 hydrants, line by line, on a spreadsheet, ready to be uploaded onto the app.
Regional manager Craig May, one of the team leaders, said:
"The app is going to be a massive benefit to both us and to Thames Water. Our teams will be able to find the best abstraction location within seconds, saving us time and reducing the risk of unsafe operational practices.
"A large proportion of water leaks are associated with these hydrants. We will be able to use the app to instantly alert Thames Water of any problems, which will result in less water lost, and reduced risk of fines for leaks.
"We believe the app will set a new standard for water abstraction."
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