Structural Condition Monitoring System for Lighting Columns

Tender description

Network Rail owns around 100,000 lighting columns, a proportion of which must be manually inspected on an annual basis to determine their condition. Network Rail are seeking to understand whether technology can be used to remove the need for time-based manual inspections so that we can move towards remote condition monitoring and a ‘plan and prevent’ maintenance routing for lighting columns. The Technical Authority issued a challenge statement addressing this which is detailed below. Related Challenge Statement: “Provide a Safe and Efficient Method to Enable Non-Destructive Testing of Hidden Metallic Standalone Column” Lot 1: Network Rail is seeking a remote condition monitoring and decision support tool which can provide the following services/outcomes: 1. Remotely determine the structural performance level of lighting columns and enable informed asset management decision making without the need for physical inspection of the column. 2. Remotely determine the performance status of the luminaire (i.e., whether it is operational or it has failed. 3. Enable communication of real time notifications to persons responsible for asset management for either structural or luminaire failures of the lighting columns. 4. Provide an asset management system utilising modern Geographic Information Systems which includes asset data and asset performance data for lighting columns. 5. Enable data collection and associated data analysis capability for predictive deterioration modelling to inform future business plan interventions. - Remote condition monitoring and early warning detection of asset failure is required for lighting columns. How can we identify what is normal and abnormal within lighting columns and trigger alerts based on this information? - How do other asset owners monitor their assets? Can we adopt any effective methods or techniques from other industries? - What are the common failure modes for particular material types? What are the risks for these failure modes? - How can remote condition monitoring findings be easily and clearly communicated to surveyors and asset engineers and give time-framed action recommendations? Output vision: An inspection methodology and reporting solution that will allow Network Rail to fully understand the condition of its lighting columns with maximum safety, minimum cost, and minimum disruption. The output should enable Surveyors and Asset Engineers to understand the condition and enable them to make time-framed decisions clearly and easily. Potential Tenderers will need to inform if they have the ability to meet each of the points above in their response.