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Integrated water and sewerage management

South East Water based in Melbourne, Australia, recently upgraded its mix of standalone, legacy monitoring systems with an integrated, flexible video surveillance platform from Milestone Systems to support the organisation’s ambitious technology and innovation strategy.

South East Water provides water, sewerage and recycled water services to residential, commercial and industrial customers — more than 1.7 million people in southeast Melbourne. Its service region covers 3640 square kilometres. South East Water manages a water and sewer network made up of more than 24 000 kilometres of pipeline, 81 water pump stations, 259 sewage pump stations, nine recycled water pump stations, eight water recycling plants, and one storm water treatment plant, totalling more than AUD $3 billion (just over R30 billion) of infrastructure and assets.

Milestone’s open platform paired with network cameras from Axis Communications, enables South East Water to monitor its assets with a centralised, integrated solution that is easy for employees to use. Axis network cameras provide comprehensive coverage of offices and remote facilities, as well as street and underground sewage and drainage systems. Milestone Mobile’s Video Push notification allows South East Water to quickly respond to incidents like major infrastructure damage, burst pipes, sewer spills and other critical events that can all be streamed in real-time from operators’ phones to the control room.

“Our most important criterion in choosing a new system was that it be an open platform,” said Andrew Forster-Knight, group manager of Intelligent Systems at South East Water. “With Milestone, we got an almost unlimited amount of choices when it comes to camera vendors and third-party applications, reducing integration costs and maximising the value of existing infrastructure.”

Access control integration is also enhancing South East Water’s security processes. Using the Milestone XProtect Access module, South East Water is able to integrate Milestone’s video management and user interface with Integriti access control. This system integration combines visual verification from the Milestone video interface with access control events, for efficient central management.

“It would have been a time-consuming process to have everyone use a swipe-card to access the lot, so we designed our new building in Frankston with licence plate recognition,” said Forster-Knight. “XProtect LPR automatically opens our parking lot gate when a permitted licence plate is identified. Plus, we have Axis ‘eyes’ on every car in the lot, so we can proactively respond to any incidents that may arise.”

South East Water is also reaping the benefits of Milestone Mobile Video Push, which has greatly improved operational efficiency. Engineers out in the field can relay the details of complex issues instantaneously from any location.

“In the past, when an engineer would go to inspect a problem with a sewage pipe, we wouldn’t receive the information for hours or possibly days,” said Forster-Knight. “Now, using Milestone Mobile, video can be recorded with a smartphone and immediately sent to our command centre, where we can evaluate the cause and take appropriate action. It means we can respond to problems faster, and the impact to customers is greatly reduced.”

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