Around 100 infrastructure leaders from Wellington Electricity, Civil Contractors NZ, the New Zealand Utilities Advisory Group, Chorus, Vital (amongst others), joined Wellington City Council Mayor Tory Whanau and Chief Executive Barbara McKerrow for the launch of the pilot version of the Underground Asset Register for Wellington.
The “once in a lifetime opportunity” is supported by Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, which helps cities from across the globe to tackle complex challenges and improve their residents’ quality of life. Wellington is one of only 10 cities chosen around the world to be part of the programme.
Watch video of WUAM
Mayor Whanau says: “It is vital we figure out the way through our underground world. Wellington has seen first-hand what an infrastructure deficit looks like.”
The register is the first combined, online data sharing platform for underground infrastructure owned by the Council and other utility operators across any city in New Zealand. The ambition is to build a platform that can ultimately be scaled up for the whole of the country.
The platform aims to reduce disruption to the capital’s streets by moving away from legacy records and outdated paper processes to a centralised online map-based library. It is the start of a long journey towards a digital twin of the infrastructure under the city’s streets.
Chief Executive Barbara McKerrow says with so much infrastructure construction planned across Wellington, we have a once in a lifetime opportunity, while the ground is open to capture what is where.
“I’ve had the opportunity to visit a number of construction sites and one of my observations is how congested the space under our roads and footpaths is.”