Adien and the Rail Sector ...
Since 2006 Adien have been authorised through passing the Proof Audit of the Achilles Link-up approval scheme for work on the UK rail sector. We passed a rigorous external assessment of all our processes and procedures and are fully authorised to undertake such work. As important as this, the PipeHawk II Ground Probing Radar equipment that we use is one of very few makes of GPR equipment that is approved to work trackside.
[^]
Adien Lead the Industry...
 For some time now Adien have been a board member of the VISTA project and have been asked to make contributions to the various DTI funded groups who are wrestling with the issue of how to nationally locate and record data regarding buried assets. As a regular contributor to VISTA and MTU (Mapping the Underworld) Adien have been able to give the groups a unique insight into the issues surrounding the location and mapping of underground utilities.
And real progress is being made in this area. Since the mid-eighties in enlightened organisations it has been recognised that there is a need for much better information coordination and exchange firstly between utilities themselves regarding the location of underground assets and then with the highway authorities. The education process to get all bodies involved has been long and difficult even though backed by a legislative framework. Generally new statutes have been introduced with a wish list of objectives and then industry bodies have had to agree how they could be realised with the implementation timetable being dictated by the establishment of consensus on technical issues. The first legislation was the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, but it took eleven years to introduce a recommended, non-compulsory Code of Practice on record keeping under the provisions of the Street Works (Records) Regulations 2002.
Since then the pace of change has increased with the more enlightened organisations realising that lack of an effective regime is expensive. The Traffic Management Act 2004 included the highway authorities in the process, and gave local traffic authorities, usually the local authority, responsibility to manage the road network including street works to secure the expeditious flow of traffic. As with the earlier Act working groups have had to meet to establish procedures for implementation, which will be incorporated in regulations to be processed by an Order in Council.
The most contentious issues concern utilities and have been addressed by the National Underground Assets Group (NUAG). In September 2006, NUAG produced an extensive report “Capturing, recording, storing and sharing underground asset information – a review of current practice and future requirements”. This document recommends a mandatory Code of Practice for establishing and managing information concerning underground assets.
The recommendations from NUAG, which is a utilities only organisation, now go to the Highways And Utilities Committee (HAUC) for formal drafting of the Code of Practice and new Regulations. This is not generally anticipated to be contentious. All this activity is being carried out under the umbrella of the Department for Transport (DfT), which has indicated that the new Regulations may be placed before Parliament by the end of 2007. This may be optimistic but no major barriers are envisaged.
The other challenge arises in managing the data interchange database which is where activities are being led by the University of Leeds on the VISTA project.
[^]
Adien Granted one of the first Ofcom GPR Licences...
Adien were granted one of the first GPR licences by Ofcom in September. Adien’s parent company PipeHawk announced that Ofcom has issued the first licences to operate GPR equipment to PipeHawk plc and Adien Limited, heralding the official acceptance of GPR as a maturing technology. Gordon Watt, Chairman of PipeHawk plc, said “This is a significant advance for PipeHawk as it means GPR is now an acknowledged and regulated technology, and all companies which purport to use GPR must now be registered and regulated to operate legally.”
Prior to this, the legislative status of GPR as a technology was ambiguous with the Euro GPR Association members operating under a waiver. GPR is a UWB technology that radiates short duration pulses that appear in the frequency domain as a very low signal across wide spectral regions and does not fit into the normal radio-licensing regime.
The UK licensing arrangements were negotiated by Dr Richard Chignell,
PipeHawk's Technical Director, a past Chairman and currently licensing officer of the Euro GPR Association. Negotiations continue, for a consistent Europe wide licensing regime. The PipeHawk Board expects that the new UK scheme will have a seamless transition to the anticipated European scheme.
[^] Adien Retain ISO 9001:2000 Accreditation ...
This year Adien retained their full ISO 9001:2000 accreditation covering all of its operational activities through from project enquiry to the delivery of results to clients. Working with Dr Terry Russell of the Centre for ISO 9000 Adien have adopted a web based ISO system that is accessible to all staff. It took several months to put the systems in but it is important that no short cuts were taken and that the project impacted all staff and not just a small section of the Company.
An outside consultant – a feature that was highlighted by the assessor this year as being a particular strength, undertakes independent audits of the Adien system.
The important aspect was that the system allows Adien to offer improved service to clients and is not simply a “badge” for display purposes only. Achieving high quality standards will allow us to ensure we have firm foundations for future growth.
[^]
Edinburgh Tram Project ... Earlier this year Adien won its largest contract to date, awarded by Parsons
Brinckerhoff Ltd. Under the terms of the contract, Adien will detect and map the underground utilities on the route of the proposed Edinburgh Tram, a project to introduce a light rail system to Edinburgh. Our previous experience of working in highly congested urban areas enabled it to secure the contract, which has a value of £220,000.
The Scotsman newspaper reported the story as follows: £220k to keep track of pipes
ALAN RODEN TRANSPORT REPORTER
A TEAM of experts has won a £220,000 contract to detect and map gas pipes and water mains beneath the route of the city's proposed tram network. The project, which is now under way, is designed to pinpoint pipes that must be moved to make way for the trams. Edinburgh's streets will be ripped up twice - once so that underground pipes and cables can be moved, then again for the tram rails to be laid. Doncaster-based company Adien will spend around four months scanning the city's roads to determine what lies underneath the surface. Utility works need to be moved because the foundations for tram tracks are buried around 50cm below the ground, while water, gas, electricity and communications companies require access for maintenance. If utility pipes remain in the path of the tram, passengers could face disruption, while burst mains would also cause serious problems. Last autumn, Transport Initiatives Edinburgh (TIE), the council-owned firm behind the plans, struck a unique deal with utility companies to carry out all work at the same time. This will prevent Scottish Water, Scottish Gas and other businesses digging up the streets at different times. Nevertheless, residents and businesses face massive upheaval once the roadworks start in the autumn. The workers from Adien will initially be mapping roads between Leith's Western Harbour and Edinburgh Airport, the route on which the city's first modern-day tram line is due to be up and running by 2010. They will also analyse another route from Haymarket to Granton, which TIE and the city council are confident can also be finished in four years' time, then the shelved parts of the network from the airport to Newbridge, and Granton to Leith.
A spokeswoman for TIE said: "In a UK first, the diversion of utilities will be co-ordinated centrally when constructing Edinburgh's tram network, to keep disruption to a minimum.
"An important part of this work is to detect and map the underground utilities accurately."
The two parliamentary Bills for Edinburgh's trams will be debated by MSPs later this month, with Royal Assent likely to be granted before the summer. After this, some funding will be released to pay utility companies to divert water mains and gas pipes, while sites along the route will also be purchased from landowners. However, the final costs of the scheme will not be known until June 2007, when infrastructure and vehicle contracts are awarded and the remainder of the cash is released. So far, around £16.5 million has already been spent.
Graham Russell, vice-chairman of the Edinburgh branch of the Federation of Small Business, said: "The disruption will be huge and our members will have to put up with the dust, traffic chaos, and people unable to get to their shops because of jams."
Last September, international consultants Parsons Brinckerhoff were handed a £23.5m contract to develop a detailed traffic management plan to minimise disruption during the construction phase of the tram lines. Break-out clauses are understood to be built into the contracts so that all the money would not change hands should the project fail to get off the ground. The contact to Adien, a subsidiary of water utility services provider PipeHawk, was awarded by Parsons Brinckerhoff. [^] FieldHawk ...
A major water company asked Adien to trace some 600mm plastic pipes across open country recently. After considering the project with our holding company PipeHawk plc, we decided that a joint approach with PipeHawk was the best way of meeting our client’s needs. PipeHawk are world experts at research and development in radar and were able to mobilise their team onto it at short notice. And so was born “FieldHawk”. In the words of Mark Hennon, Production and Customer Support Manager at PipeHawk plc FieldHawk is “a Low Frequency antenna, specifically designed and tuned to find large diameter pipes buried "deep". By deep, we mean in excess of the normal PipeHawk penetration of say 3 metres. As an analogy, take the old fashioned 405 line TV, the aerial was a large H or X, whereas the modern 625 line TV aerial is very small. This is all to do with frequency. The old TV was VHF (very high frequency) whereas today it is UHF (ultra high frequency). The lower the frequency the larger the aerial. It is the same with GPR, so hence it is over 2 metres long”. So there you have it. FieldHawk continues to be tested, and it is a good example of the unique relationship that we have with PipeHawk plc for the benefit of our clients. [^]
|
