Asset Inspection and Assessment

case study: local and trunk sewer assessment program

The City of Toronto, the largest city in Canada, maintains and operates an extensive sanitary, storm and combined sewer network with over 10,600 km of mains and 160,000 maintenance holes (MH). As part of Toronto’s best practices, the city runs an on-going Sewer Inspection and Condition Assessment Program in order to maintain a long-term, accurate database of network rehabilitation needs. Andrews.engineer (A.E) was retained by the City to manage the Program for a 5-year period commencing in 2014. As the designated Program Manager, A.E is responsible for the delivery of the inspection, assessment and rehabilitation results for 2,500 km of sewers and 40,000 MHs over the 5-year duration of the program. In 2019, A.E completed Phase 1 and initiated Phase 2 of the program.

The activities performed by A.E in this program include:

  • Overall planning, co-ordination, execution of the entire program
  • Day-to-day planning and management of the CCTV and MH inspection crews (10 to 15 full-time crews), and various cleaning activities (flushing, reaming and robotic cutting)
  • Data management and ongoing QA/QC
    • – Work orders issuance and return data from field crews (1,200-1,400 videos and coding per month)
    • – Condition assessment review (60,000 m of sewers and 1,100 MH per month)
    • – Rehabilitation assignment and reporting (250 sewer segments and 200 chambers per month)
  • Integrated use of InfoNet© and GIS platforms to ensure smooth, accurate transfer and use of data
  • Monthly submittals of deliverables including 400-500 Gb of data with InfoNet snapshots and GIS updates
  • Rigorous QA/QC process for all data (addressing each and every asset at each stage of the program)

Toronto adopted a unique approach for this Program; the inspection contractors are actual members of the consulting team. As a result, A.E has directly retained the contractors to work as part of the team and hence be directly involved in the overall planning and management of the field work as well as self-managing the QA/QC process. This comprehensive team approach with the consultants and contractors directly working together has resulted in productivity and accuracy exceeding original program targets.

Monthly results exceed targets by as much as 25% to 35%. On average, 60,000 m of sewer inspection has been completed as compared to the contracted target of 45,000 m. Some 1,100 MHs have been inspected monthly compared to a target of 850 MH.

Project Details

client: City of Toronto, Ontario
date: Phase 1
2014 to 2019
Phase 2
2019 to 2024
(Planned duration)
services:
Application and use of InfoNet Platform

Management of inspection and cleaning services

Condition assessment per NASSCO standards

Rehabilitation planning and programming

Data control and data management

Quality control programming