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Costain in lamp post tagging trial

7 Apr 16 Costain is putting electronic tags on lighting columns and sign posts on a road in Immingham as part of a Highways England technology trial.

Costain at work in Immingham
Costain at work in Immingham

The £88.4m project to dual three miles of the A160 Port of Immingham road in Lincolnshire is being used as a testbed by Highways England for a new way of monitoring highway equipment to aid future maintenance.

Costain, main contractor on the job, is using the RedBite asset tool to tag Highways England owned assets. RedBite is a spin-out from the University of Cambridge and a member of the HyperCat Consortium.

Items which have been tagged so far along the A160 include lighting columns, signs, pavements, culverts and gullies. Once each item is tagged, the data is transmitted to a webpage where all data relating to that piece of equipment or asset is recorded for future use.

The technology uses radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, quick response (QR) codes and global positioning system (GPS) tags. It is the first time the technology has been used on a road project. 

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RFID involves the use of radio waves to convert and transmit information from an RFID tag to a digital device – such as a smartphone. Alerts can also be sent out when faults are reported on any particular piece of equipment.

Highways England project manager Ben Ridgeon said: “Managing and tagging assets using intelligent software has many benefits, not only in recording the location of that equipment but, more crucially, in monitoring that asset in the future.

“With such heavy usage on our assets, wear and tear is inevitable. By using a system where we can record and maintain a large amount of data on a range of different equipment, we can improve accuracy on the condition of those assets.”

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MPU
MPU

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