Having won a competitive tender, highways infrastructure and technology company Yotta has been commissioned by Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) to deliver the third phase of an ongoing specialist analysis and consultancy support contract.
Yotta was awarded the contract following its successful delivery of the first two project phases, which involved estimating the carriageway asset maintenance works required on Greater Manchester’s Key Route Network (KRN) in the UK.
This latest phase is designed to provide insight into the carriageway asset condition of the region’s KRN and inform the road maintenance plans of Greater Manchester’s 10 local authorities, while plotting a path toward an integrated region-wide approach to road maintenance. Using its UKPMS-accredited (UK Pavement Management System) SCANNER survey machine, Yotta collected information about the TfGM carriageways in the first two project phases, and analyzed the data to produce a red/amber/green traffic light map of the results, before developing an estimate of the maintenance works required by applying a nationally recognized maintenance ruleset to the raw SCANNER data.
Following the award of the contract for phase three, Yotta has refined its maintenance works-required estimate and adjusted it to precisely align with observed local conditions, as well as updating it with the current year’s condition data. As a result of this work, the company has generated a more refined works-required estimate of the total investment required by Greater Manchester to bring the whole KRN up to the desired standard.
The work done also enabled Yotta to recommend the precise kinds of road surfacing treatment that needed to be applied to specific sections of the carriageway. The company then mapped the results using its Horizons visualized asset management software system. Yotta also delivered some future ‘what if’ scenarios to TfGM to help identify an optimal maintenance strategy for the network going forward. Yotta has worked collaboratively with TfGM and the region’s 10 highways authorities, drawing on their local knowledge and expertise, helping them move toward an integrated region-wide approach to road maintenance.
“Through working with TfGM on this important contract, we have built a close working relationship based on trust. We were delighted to have the opportunity to extend that relationship and provide TfGM with the tools and consultancy they needed to help ensure the Key Route Network delivers what Greater Manchester needs for the future,” explained Simon Phillips, Yotta’s UK commercial director.
“This analysis formed the basis of the strategic consultancy we delivered. We provided a series of potential future scenarios that helped TfGM answer key questions including: would spending more now result in better savings in the long run, or how much would it cost to achieve a ‘steady state’?
“We also built into the calculation priorities that are specific to Greater Manchester; proximity to certain economic areas or other social variables, for example, which could be used to prioritize certain kinds of maintenance interventions. The end goal was to arrive at an optimal scenario for Greater Manchester and then build a multi-year maintenance program from that.”
