High-tech innovation helps JRA to work smarter

07 October 2015

 

The Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) is now able to respond quicker and more effectively to issues relating to infrastructure following the introduction of a Smart City innovation.

 

The Smart City solution has enabled the JRA to develop a complete view of the City’s roads inventory in a modernised fashion befitting of a world class African city.

 

Over 1.6 million images and locations of 700 000 JRA assets have been captured onto the system for effortless tracking, monitoring and management. The assets are divided into the following categories: stormwater infrastructure, roads furniture, bridges, street names, as-built drawings and document management.

 

Councillor Christine Walters, the Member of the Mayoral Committee for Transport, says the new innovation will result in improved service delivery to the public and better management and planning capabilities for the JRA.

 

“The last audit of road infrastructure assets was conducted in 2007. It is often forgotten that Johannesburg is a dynamic, ever expanding City with new assets constantly being created. This has resulted in difficulties in the past in terms of management, maintenance, budgeting and planning, says MMC Walters. “It was problematic to take decisions without access to the most recent and accurate information.”

 

This prompted the JRA to conduct a comprehensive survey to verify and update its asset information. The year-long programme used field workers recruited from communities and offered employment to more than 50 people.

 

“The data is now available to the JRA within the Geographic Information System and resulted in an improved ability to pick up defects in all the regions, improve proactive maintenance planning and reduce maintenance times, enhance road conditions and boost traffic management,” says Acting JRA Managing Director Mpho Kau.

 

“The Smart City Solution is a critical determinant for the JRA to achieve its objectives of improving the roads infrastructure within the City. Assets captured on the system are searchable and updates can be tracked. A customized and web-based application has been developed for the JRA to enable easy searches and improve the capacity to retrieve information. By linking information, layering data, and filtering of assets by ward, region and type, the Smart City application enables the JRA to take informed decisions and generate relevant reports. Moreover, all assets on the Smart City Solution can be visualised and their aesthetics examined,” adds Kau.

 

The database of the Agency’s assets has been comprehensively updated with geotagged labels, photographs and standardised asset categories and identifications. “The system has sufficient storage capacity to keep complete document and visual records of infrastructure such as roads, bridges and sidewalks. Through the system we are now able to inform the planning of new municipal infrastructure as well as identify what infrastructure requires attention, where to intervene, how to budget and when to introduce maintenance,” says Kau.

 

Key findings of Johannesburg’s city-wide road assets:

• 8344% increase in road furniture assets from 5342 to 451 103;

• 283% increase in storm water infrastructure assets from 69 255 to 265 405;

• Gravel roads decreased by 39.3% from 2015.5 km to 1 223.6km mainly due to the success of the gravel roads upgrade to asphalt surface programme implemented;

• Surfaced roads increased by 14% from 9050.6km to 10 306.2 km;

• 1863 bridges city-wide recorded of which JRA is responsible for 812 bridges; and

• 55 550 street kerb names recorded and 10 171 street sign names.

 

Furthermore, planned developments – including artistic impressions – will be uploaded on Smart City Solution to reassert the JRA’s position as a transparent roads agency.