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Maintenance of roads is an essential responsibility of every local government. With a significant proportion of road works undertaken by third parties (not the road owning authority), it is essential that a clearly defined process and tools are available for both local governments and contractors to manage the process of applying for and overseeing road opening permits to ensure the safety of road users and works crews. It is estimated that in Australia accidents at worksites within the road reserve result in around 50 deaths, along with an additional 750 injuries, annually, with the financial impact of these accidents amounting to almost $400 million. Knowing who is working within a local government’s road reserve, when and how they intend to safely manage their works is key to reducing potential risks to both the public and their crews onsite.

Read on to learn more about how PermitAccess can help ensure your road owning authority is aware of works occurring within your road reserve through the removal of barriers to apply for road opening permits, as well as how to efficiently manage those applications.

Who Should Apply for Road Permits?

A road reserve starts at the boundary of one property and ends at the boundary of the opposite property, including both the footpath and nature-strip. A road opening permit, therefore, may be required for any kind of work that needs to be carried out on any part of this surface. It is important to note that although some works for utilities are exempt from requiring a road opening permit, there is still a requirement to notify the road owning authority in advance of scheduled works. Likewise, works being undertaken on behalf of a road owning authority may still need a road opening permit, allowing the road owner to ensure that their contractors are following all required safety procedures, for their own safety, and that of road users.

Challenges of Obtaining Road Permits

One of the biggest challenges that road maintenance providers face to obtaining a permit is the time it takes for an application to be reviewed and approved. Depending on the local government, and their processes, it can often take more than ten days to generate all the required approvals required before the commencement of excavation work. These delays make scheduling works crews and other jobs difficult to manage.

Another challenge associated with road opening permits is the difficulty in knowing who owns the road in which the works are taking place. Not knowing whose permission is required can significantly slow down the application process, as time is lost enquiring with local governments and other road owning authorities as to the ownership of the road in question.

Finally, once the correct road owner is located, the process of applying for a permit needs to be known. This can differ significantly from local government to local government. Some road owning authorities have online forms, however many require the applicant to visit their offices to apply in person, which can be a time consuming process, requiring travel during work hours – time which could be better spent.

Impacts Due to Lack of Permits

The hassle of applying for and waiting for approval of a permit may result in unauthorized work being carried if the applicant chooses to do the work without the required approval. Without proper review and approval, workers may neglect safety procedures, putting themselves and the community at risk.

Additionally, without the road owner’s approval, the road works may impact other, permitted, works, causing unnecessary traffic delays and confusing road signage.

Finally, if the road owner is unaware of the works taking place they are unable to manage and oversee what is happening to their asset. This can lead to remedial works being required at the road owner’s cost if they unable to locate the persons responsible for the damage to their road surface. These remedial works mean that other scheduled works may be delayed due to budgetary restraints.

Importance of Workforce Transparency

When manually managing the documentation of field construction work, it is almost impossible for supervisors in the office to know who was assigned for which task. This could lead to incomplete work that is difficult to trace to the worker. Apart from causing damages to the roads and other issues, incomplete work may also raise serious questions when the sign-off for completion is required from the council.

Using manual workforce assignment signifies difficulty in communication between contractors, leading to an overlap of work, redundancy, unassigned taskforce, and so on. Hence, it is vital to have full transparency of the workforce assigned so that the completed work can be confidently exhibited during a council review.

How Can PermitAccess Help?

PermitAccess is a cloud-based solution from PelicanCorp that allows anyone working within the road reserve to apply for permits online using their Dial Before You Dig (DBYD) enquiry as the trigger. This means that permits can be applied for at any time from any place.

Once the application is generated PermitAccess connects the applicant with the authorities that approve permits in the region of the work site. No more needing to know who owns the road in question. The two parties can then securely share documents, terms and conditions, and any other required information online.

When the road owning authority has all the required information PermitAccess can generate the relevant permit that the applicant can access anywhere, anytime.

From a road owning authority perspective, PermitAccess allows staff to easily see who is, or has been, working where and when. This reduces clashes where multiple work sites or their planned traffic management and detours impact each other, as well as providing a tool to follow up on public queries regarding works. Finally, if a work site is left unsafe, knowing who was recently working there allows the road owner to follow up with those who potentially have not completed their works to a satisfactory standard.

Get PermitAccess, Reduce Costs

PermitAccess can drastically reduce the road reinstatement municipalities by ensuring that contractors always have access to the right set of conditions to begin work, ensuring they are aware of their obligations regarding the quality of their works. Inspections can be managed through the entire process, including the warranty period, highlighting any deficiencies early. As an automated process, the entire procedure of managing permit applications through PermitAccess can be reduced to less than 48 hours, saving significant amounts of staff time.

With PermitAccess, road asset managers can now have increased visibility of works within their road reserve, with consistent workflows applied. Thus, it becomes easier to retain their roads at the safest level possible.

How is the modern-day contractor working smarter not harder? Are they being more productive with the software available to them enabling greater effectiveness and efficiencies when working “off the tools”?

In an effort to improve operations, efficiency and productivity on jobsites more contractors than ever before are looking to the market for cutting-edge technology solutions. According to a recent report, 62% of contracting companies are experimenting with smart tools and software solutions to reduce the work load when not on the tools. With a nearly 20% increase on the 2016 figures, it indicates that contractors are actively seeking new ways to address challenges.

The Solution is Now:

In a world where software solutions are readily available in the palm of our hand contractors now have access to tools that can simplify and streamline the underground damage prevention requirements of a job.

Across the ANZ region, it takes on average 5-10 minutes to complete a Dial Before You Dig (AU) or beforeUdig (NZ) enquiry – starting with job submission right through to receiving all asset location information and sending it out to crews in the field. These efforts can include logging the original job online or via a call center as well as the manual collation processes involved in sorting responses based upon the individual job.

The burden this creates for contractor organisations doing large numbers of enquiries is huge. However – through the use of online services now available why not have asset location responses collated for you?

There are cloud based solutions that will automatically collate your incoming DBYD or beforeUdig plan responses into a single job pack for each project, notifying you upon completion via a single email. Such systems allow you to reduce the workload of the project planning team and ensure your crew on site have all the information they require.

Contracting crews in the field often find paper printed plans get easily damaged, marked or ruined and printed plans can be unclear and low-quality print with small, hard to read markings. These services, by providing readily available digital copies of the asset location responses, can also eliminate the previous risk of plans being damaged on site. They can also be zoomed in and out to improve legibility.

Ensuring the safety of workers is critical in any industry, so maintaining that workers have easy access to the information they need to work safely is paramount. With a collated single job pack accessible via a tablet on site, contractors have the information they need to work safer and smarter in their hands, available 24x7.

If you are ready to take control and work smarter, not harder with the collation processes of your Dial Before You Dig plans contact the team at PelicanCorp for more information on how our PlanAccess solution can start reducing your costs today.

The inaugural Oceania Damage Prevention Conference, held on the Gold Coast in August 2018, brought together representatives from all sectors within the utility industry and provided an opportunity which damage prevention professionals in the Oceania region have been anticipating for years – an event dedicated to showcasing damage prevention efforts and best practice and public awareness initiatives across Australia and New Zealand.

With unilateral support from both the state and national sectors, Platinum Sponsor, DBYD was instrumental in the development of this breakthrough event which was the first time all stakeholder groups have gathered together to discuss how to improve damage prevention efforts. With 8% of attendance comprised of international delegates, and professionals representing One Call operators, locators, contractors, asset owners, engineers, and more, delegates had a unique opportunity to learn perspectives not only across industry, but across nations.

PelicanCorp were proud to be a major sponsor of the event and work together with the team from ODPC to help make the conference a success. “It was such a fantastic opportunity to see delegates attend from all over the globe. This was truly the first real global damage prevention event I have attended. The learnings and experience from across all stakeholder groups gave the team at PelicanCorp real insight into the challenges faced in the industry today” said Duane Rodgers, PelicanCorp CEO.

Daily plenary sessions provided a strong start to each day, offering an opportunity for senior industry leaders to present, discuss and explore trends and future opportunities impacting the utilities sector.

The first ever Global Locate Summit drew together a panel of industry experts who discussed their ideas for attracting and retaining the right people in the industry and how to offer school leavers and graduates career paths within utility location and the broader damage prevention industry.

A common theme promoted across the conference was working collaboratively to identify best practice and share sector learnings. “This is a challenge that Dial Before You Dig will embrace,” said Stuart Burdack, AADYBDS CEO, “We have established good working relationships with industry peak bodies and several research bodies and look forward to facilitating a range of cross sector projects over the next couple of years to report back to the 2020 Damage Prevention Conference.”

Wednesday evening everyone took a break to relax and network at the Star Hotel. Tom Scott, Hunter Water Corporation, was the lucky recipient of a trip for 2 to Tampa, Florida in March, 2019 to attend the largest international industry event, CGA 811 Excavation Safety Conference & Expo, courtesy of Oceania Damage Prevention Conference founding sponsors Infrastructure Resources and PelicanCorp.

“The 2018 Oceania Damage Prevention Conference on the Gold Coast was a vital educational and networking link between all key activists in the infrastructure asset management industry. I cannot wait for the next conference in Sydney 2020” said Christopher Reynolds, DBYD SA/NT.

Without a doubt, the 2018 Oceania Damage Prevention Conference was an unmitigated success. The quality of presentations and cross-sector participation and contributions from the broad range of stakeholders in the utility construction, operations and maintenance industry was unique. 95.5% of surveyed delegates rated their overall satisfaction to be above average and 95.5% of them said they plan to attend future Oceania Damage Prevention Conferences.

They will get their chance to do just that when the Oceania Damage Prevention Conference returns in 2020 in Sydney even bigger and better than the inaugural event this year.

To learn more about what happened in 2018, or to be among the first to know what’s happening in 2020, go to OceaniaDPC.com and click on “Event Updates” in the upper-right corner.

How a Road Opening Permitting automation software solution can help reduce your Road Management operations costs and provide greater awareness of works in your road reserve.

Whether you manage a small regional shire or a large inner city council, the road opening permit application process presents a complex set of challenges to any local government organisation. Yet, every day, asset managers are tasked with keeping track of permit applications and being aware of who is working within their locally managed road reserves. Not only are they expected to know who is working where and when but are required to manage the process in an efficient, timely and cost-effective manner. With the volume of public works levels increasing at the most rapid rate seen in the past decade it can often feel as if they must achieve the un-achievable, with less resources than ever before.

One way to identify potential road management operational savings is to identify the highest costs incurred within the asset management division – road re-instatement costs. Local Governments across Australia spend on average $50 billion dollars per annum on re-instatement costs across their road networks. Up to 32% of this cost can be attributed to repairing works of poorly repaired sites by contractors who did not request the correct permitting applications prior to commencing the project.

In recent times, and with the development of cloud-based software platforms that can automate the entire process, asset managers can now access real-time data about the planned excavation works occurring within their road reserves. Such systems can be used to reduce the reliance on contractors approaching the municipality to request the permit, cut costs by reducing the resources required to respond to these applications and dramatically improve the turnaround times for permit reviews and approvals.

But that’s not all; the data collected can also be used to further investigate historical data of works conducted when issues arise in the future. Here are four ways a Permitting Automation software solution can help to reduce road management operational costs and provide greater awareness:

Increased Awareness through Notification

Road Asset Managers for any local government organisation understand at any one point in time, up to 25% of the works being done in their road reserve are conducted without a permit application. In many instances this is due to urgent repair works, or timelines that do not allow for the lengthy permit application process and back and forth review that can follow.

By automating the application, review and approval stages, contractors using a One Call service – such as Dial Before You Dig – for asset plan locations can now automatically have permit applications delivered to participating Councils & Permit Authorities.

Through automatic submission, a municipality now has greater awareness of any planned works and can manage applications to reduce impact on all road users while having the confidence of knowing who has been working where when issues arise.

Accessibility to Information, Anytime – Anywhere

Are you finding it difficult to navigate the back and forth of sharing information to have the necessary permits reviewed? It’s a costly exercise in your resources time and effort and often takes weeks to complete.

Cloud based, fully configurable software places the responsibility back in the hands of the permit applicant. Contractors can view updates on the progress of their Permit applications, as well as share documents and messages with the municipality. They can even pay for their permits online and view a complete history of all permit applications made.

Reduce costs through Accountability

Road re-instatement costs can add up and are a huge burden on the bottom line for municipalities when the responsible party cannot be found. Should they not be aware of who conducted the works the resulting damage repair costs must be borne by the council budget.

When all works are recorded through automatically notified permitting application processes you can track all excavation works within the road reserve. In the instance of a damage, the relevant contractor can be identified and held accountable for the re-instatement fees and any additional repair costs.

Reduce the turn around times to review and approve Permit requests

What if you could reduce the turn around time from an average of 10 business days to only 48 hours for responding to permit applications? A simple workflow process provides both a contractor and the municipality a reduction in the time taken to fully understand an application and be able to make a decision.

If you are ready to take control of your Road Management processes contact the team at PelicanCorp for more information on how our PermitAccess solution can start reducing your costs today.