Blogs

 

Waste collection video used for ‘virtual site visits’ at Yarra Ranges Council

By intouch * posted 19-09-2019 13:16

  

The weekly video footage of almost every street in the LGA is now helping council respond faster to issues on the road.

In a presentation at the 2019 International Public Works Conference in Hobart, delegates learned how collaboration with a supplier has put video footage from waste collection trucks to use for multiple purposes. The result is more efficient responses to roadside problems and time-saving, through the instant verification of reports without the need for a field trip inspection.

yarra-ranges-council.jpg

Below is the paper by Peter Tatterson and Matthew Schoemaker from Yarra Ranges Council explaining how the program began and its potential.

Customer service transformed using innovative video technology from waste collection vehicles

J.J. Richards and Sons have always been innovators in the area of waste collection technology and practices, a tradition that continued with the introduction of their j-Track® onboard operational data and telemetry system in the late 1990s.

j-Track® has continued to evolve in functionality through JJR’s ongoing investment in improving the technology, to the point where the available computing and camera solutions in the market were no longer suitable to their requirements and they needed to consider designing their own.

This drove JJR’s decision to invest in developing an advanced onboard computer and vision system which incorporates 360-degree video capture, by partnering with Black Moth Technologies to develop the Black Moth Vision System – a combination of powerful computing with rugged wide-angle cameras mounted around the vehicle.

These cameras, apart from providing unparalleled vision and safety benefits to drivers, are also constantly recording for incident investigation purposes.

Yarra Ranges Council is a progressive council striving for continuous improvement and innovation opportunities. Staff have routinely sought assistance from the team at JJR when customer service issues have arisen in relation to missed bin collections and alleged damage caused by waste vehicles. The availability of onboard video technology has been useful in responding to these requests.

Meanwhile, local authorities are also struggling with the growing burden of monitoring and maintaining an increasingly complex network of roads and associated infrastructure and finding ways to reduce costs while doing so.

Since Yarra Ranges Council had been benefiting from the advanced recorded vision capabilities of the Black Moth computing and camera systems fitted to JJR’s domestic waste collection vehicles for some time, they realised they could leverage that footage to their advantage in areas other than for waste collection activities. JJR’s trucks were covering nearly all of the Yarra LGA road network, on a weekly basis. This provided current footage, unlike the majority of the vision provided by alternative market technologies widely used by councils currently.

With Yarra Ranges covering an area of 2500 square kilometres, any efficiencies that can be achieved with site visits are welcomed. After council’s waste service team recognised the potential value to be gained via access to JJR’s recorded footage, they approached JJR with this idea.

JJR appreciated the suggestion and the j-Track® Council Video Portal was born. Now, council staff has access to the JJR video portal to access footage from the vehicles cost-effectively and reduce the time, cost and manpower involved in field inspection activities. In many cases, it’s not necessary to send an officer to investigate a situation and council can instead retrieve footage from the recent passage of a JJR vehicle.

While staff initially uses Google Street View, if more up-to-date imagery is required, the portal provides a cost-efficient virtual site visit.

This however is only just the beginning; with JJ Richards and Black Moth working with industry partners to develop issue-identification technology which will allow for scanning of video imagery to identify changes and issues in the streetscape through machine learning technology. Council’s vision for this innovation is to achieve exception reporting that provides information on issues such as potholes in road pavements, fallen trees or branches, damaged roadside infrastructure, contractors working in the road space and many other possibilities.

JJR has enjoyed working with Yarra Ranges Council on this project and welcomes this opportunity to leverage their heavy investment in vehicle computing technology, providing a new and innovative way for council to reduce costs and provide further benefits to residents.

0 comments
13 views