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To meet the demand for 5G, telecommunications companies are erecting hundreds of thousands of small cell towers—often two towers per streetlight. Many cities are adopting innovative strategies to not only…
Read MoreUsing best practices, learn how to convert your fleet to a standard repair equivalency. This will allow you to properly determine the number of technicians needed to maintain your diverse…
Read MoreWith more than 11,000 miles of roadways and an annual snowfall amount averaging 131 inches, the Province of New Brunswick's (PNB) winter fleet is no stranger to the "snow fight." Together with telematics partner, Northern BI, Highway Maintenance Engineer Jordan Stephens has been using telematics to manage the 450-plus fleet. Tasked with reducing a $60 million snow clearing budget, Jordan wanted to see if telematics could find areas of waste within the fleet. Having only used paper-based routes for plowing and salt/sand spreading, Northern BI recommended optimizing these age-old processes to improve efficiencies. Hear from PNB's Jordan Stephens, and Northern BI President Dwayne Primeau, on how they are leveraging IoT data to transform the province's winter fleet operations.
Read MoreTop Trending Technology for Field Crews was one of the selected technologies for APWA’s Top Trending Technologies program of 2021. This presentation will provide the audience an introduction to the TTT program in APWA, the background of the top tech for field crews topic, and the technologies explored in the program. The presentation is tailored for those technologies that are most applicable to the snowfighters and winter operations. The APWA Top Trending Technologies program has been very successful and the demand for information from our membership has been robust. The area of field crew technologies, innovations, and tools has been one of the most requested. There are many new and innovative tools for field crews and this session will provide an examination and introduction of those technologies that are currently available and generally accessible to public works crews.
Read MoreColumbus Department of Public Utilities (DPU) implemented the business case evaluation (BCE) process and avoided over $70 million in costs after seven years. The added social and environmental value of conducting BCE’s brings the cost avoidance to $100 million, and service levels, safety, and risk exposure improved. The BCE process received international recognition from the Water Services Association of Australia. It was featured in a McGraw-Hill Report, “Water Infrastructure Asset Management: Adopting Best Practices to Enable Better Investments.” A case study, which will show how BCEs are conducted and the savings that can be realized, includes examples of monetizing social and environmental factors that have no market-driven value. At PWX21, agencies discussed the difficulties of monetizing these factors. Implementation lessons will be shared, including establishing BCE policy and avoiding common implementation problems.
Read MoreTo provide accessibility under ADA guidelines, state and local government agencies are required to perform self-evaluations of their existing facilities relative to the accessibility requirements of the ADA. The public entities are then required to develop a transition plan to address any deficiencies. With 5,000 lane miles over 500 square miles in the City of Phoenix, developing a city-wide ADA Transition Plan is a significant undertaking requiring several months and millions of dollars. To understand the amount of effort needed to create a comprehensive ADA Transition Plan, the City performed a pilot project. The Title II compliant project included data collection using a vehicle-mounted, ground-based light detection and ranging (LiDAR) instrument; extraction of data into a usable geographic information system (GIS) database; and compliance analysis to identify areas for improvement. Additionally, the study defined potential options to perform ADA self-evaluation and develop a comprehensive ADA Transition Plan for the entire city.
Read MoreWith per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in wastewater, concern and regulations put pressure on utilities, disrupt biosolids disposal, and have led to escalating costs and few options. What should we do to address this, and how? PFAS have been used in industrial processes for years, and they persist in the environment. Many are still confused about PFAS and how they ended up in wastewater. The presentation will begin with an overview that provides that perspective. Once in our biosolids, what’s next, and what are our options? How do we mitigate the cost increase of PFAS-containing biosolids? We will discuss the impacts we’re experiencing and how the biosolids market is responding. The presenters will share the process to identify and implement improvements at our treatment facility. Everyone’s wastewater and biosolids differ, and thus it’s critical to pilot-test to select equipment to complement your treatment process. The presenters will close with a discussion of their approach to ensure the attainment of solids goals through equipment selection and pre-procurement.
Read MoreOver the past three years, the City of Raleigh, North Carolina, with support from consultant Brown and Caldwell, prepared for an audit of the City’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Phase I municipal separate storm sewer system (MS4) permit by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ). In 2020, the City completed a year-long self-audit and rewrote its stormwater management plan (SWMP). In 2021, the City and consultant staff focused on resolving potential program gaps before the actual audit that occurred in early 2022. In this presentation, the speakers will share how they structured the self-audit, prepared for the NCDEQ audit, and realized successes and lessons learned over this three-year process. This discussion will interest Phase I and Phase II MS4 municipal staff, stormwater regulators, and consultants to municipalities subject to NPDES MS4 compliance and audits.
Read MoreThe application of equity in infrastructure development and asset management is becoming more relevant in today’s municipal public works world. Cities should consider treating sidewalks as transportation assets, as they help reduce the total cost of ownership by funding routine, preventative, and corrective maintenance through a facility’s lifecycle. The City of Durham recognizes the benefits of equitable transportation asset management practices. Therefore, the Department of Public Works issued a request for quotation (RFQ) to develop the sidewalk asset management (SAM) plan. To ensure equity across the city, Public Works extensively coordinated with Neighborhood Improvement Services to develop a community engagement plan. Geographic information system (GIS) capabilities were used to capture, analyze, and display data. This session will help agencies recognize the economic value of SAM and equitably achieve economic efficiency over the assets’ lifecycle.
Read MoreTraditional sewer inspection can be time-consuming and overlook defects. Coding accuracy is critical when assessing a sewer line’s future degradation or determining which asset to prioritize for rehabilitation. Artificial intelligence (AI) in sewer inspection supplements workers in the field rather than replacing them. AI takes on the more common defects allowing field workers to focus on work at hand and rarer, more difficult codes. AI captures and recreates the workflow in coding and performing sewer inspection quality assurance/control. This technology substantially reduces the time required to review sewer inspection data, increases the number and accuracy of defects coded, and supplements the human element prone to bias. This presentation will demonstrate the benefits of using AI as a low-cost way to evaluate systems and better maintain assets to prioritize rehabilitation and coordinate with other work such as roadway improvements.
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