The pilot scheme will run until January, when Northumbrian Water will decide whether to go with BT or another provider. The scheme is essentially a system whereby Northumbrian Water can accurately monitor the location of its field operatives.
Brian Olley, work management programme manager at Northumbrian Water told Computer Business Review that his company operates a fleet of 1,000 vehicles. The pilot scheme with BT covers 100 vehicles and includes vehicle tracking, communications, and data transfer with the company’s lone workers (i.e. field engineers). The main thrust of this system is to improve the safety of these engineers working alone or on customer sites.
Lone workers have to confirm that they are OK every 30 minutes or so, said Olley. Unfortunately, we have had one to two attacks on our staff each year, and the trend seems to be increasing.
If the worker fails to confirm he is OK, then the system effectively triggers a ‘man down’ response, and opens a one way communication channel with the engineer to ascertain if he is OK, said Olley.
The system uses BT’s Mobile on Demand software product on the Orange network, which Northumbrian Water uses for its commercial operations. In essence, there is GPRS technology embedded in the ID holder of the worker. If removed, it also triggers an alert. There is also a vehicle tracking system fitting to the company’s vans.
Northumbrian Water covers 40,000km of pipes in the counties of Cumbria, Essex, and Suffolk in the UK. It serves 4.3 million customers and has 2,300 employees.
