Enhancing bridge inspection efficiency with WSP

Problem:

Our infrastructure is ageing. Assets built with concrete and metal are reaching the end of their life cycles, entering a phase of costly interventions that put immense pressure on government budgets. Research indicates that maintaining structures proactively, rather than reactively, can save 30% over the asset life cycle.

WSP is a global engineering and professional services firm that specialises in designing and managing critical infrastructure projects. They work with public and private sector clients to extend the lifespan of ageing assets while optimising maintenance costs. 

WSP needed a solution that would not only lower the costs of manual inspections by reducing the time it takes to perform the asset assessment but also bring implicit knowledge from the structure on-site into the office, where that knowledge could be used to optimise predictive maintenance.

WSP sought a partner capable of both delivering immediate results and developing a long-term, scalable solution.

The minimum requirements for the solution were:

• The ability to create a digital understanding of an asset’s condition.

• The ability to detect and quantify defects.

• The capability to handle new forms of data collection, such as 360° imagery.

• The technology needed to fit within the existing constraints of an asset's capture window, so it needed to take the same amount of time or less than current methods.