Highways

East Sussex

Summer Fleet

East Sussex

Summer Fleet

The Challenge

East Sussex Highways required a solution to improve the efficiency and transparency of their summer fleet vehicles.

They had several objectives for the mowers’ grass cutting subcontractors, Countrymans:

  • Improvements to the management and efficiency of grass mowing
  • To prevent accidental cutting of SSI wild flower verges
  • Gather data to meet legal requirements regarding public access to mowing schedules.

Our Approach

  • After testing a range of different mobile solutions, Onwave were able to provide a tailor-made solution that overcame all of the challenges mentioned.
    We developed a scheduling system, providing an interface between ArcGIS Workforce and previous planning systems. The polygon data collected was used to better manage mowing duties.
    To combat SSI wild flower verge mowing, a bespoke Geofence solution was developed to independently supervise the position of Workforce tablets, providing multiple warnings at various proximities for nearby hazards. Warning silencing was only possible via a centrally-logged manual hazard acknowledgement.
    An interface between ArcGIS Workforce and the East Sussex County Council website was produced to inform the local public of all schedules.

The Result

Using geometrical shaped breakdowns of the cutting areas, job allocations were made simpler and easier to manage by assigning grass shapes to individual mowers.

The Geofence warning system based on the geographical shapes helped to prevent cutting of ‘off-limit’ areas, reducing the likelihood of fines due to the destruction of SSI or wild flower verges.

East Sussex Highways were able to meet legal requirements with the use of the public interface developed, which allowed members of the public to see the grass cutting plans, in addition to notes explaining why certain places may not have been cut even though they were scheduled.

Connected technology without the hassle.