Rehabilitating Europe's aging sewers
Europe's cities are home to some of the oldest existing sewer systems in the world. As these systems age and decay, it is necessary to determine as accurately as possible what renovations must be made and when. Until now, public utility companies have had to make these decisions with less than perfect information. Typically, the available data is limited to in situ observations of private contractors and is decidedly subjective in nature. The RESEW project, funded in part by the GROWTH Programme, sought to develop a more efficient, more objective tool for the utility companies. Engineers at TECNIC coordinated the creation of an all-encompassing Decision Support System (DSS). The backbone of the system is a digital archive of sewer inspection tapes captured with Closed Circuit Television (CCTV). The DSS is further enriched with a range of models that digest the information provided by the CCTV tapes. In this way a particular segment of the sewer system can be classified according to reliability, safety, seismic risk and other factors. The key is that this step is done automatically according to objective criteria. The DSS is outfitted with a GIS-enabled graphical user interface and ODBC connectivity in order to incorporate a database into the system. Apart from automation and ease of use, other important benefits of the DSS include greater efficiency, reproducibility of results and reduced labour costs. Public utility companies and others interested in the DSS can find additional information at: http://dke.cti.gr/resew/index.html(odnośnik otworzy się w nowym oknie) . Future efforts may extend the DSS to other construction-related applications.
