Powerco wins safety award with lifesaving consequences
Powerco has won the EEA’s Public Safety Award for a programme of work identifying high risk power poles that can be moved, removed or guarded to potentially prevent serious harm incidents.
“Winning the award is wonderful recognition, but the real win is the potential this initiative has to save lives and prevent serious harm on our roads,” says Powerco GM Electricity Karen Frew.
Driven by the knowledge that over the past 40 years there has been an average of four to five fatalities and 20 serious harm accidents involving Powerco’s poles each year, Powerco worked with Waka Kotahi to look at crash data for the past four decades on all roads within the Powerco electricity footprint.
“Together with GIS experts, Orbica, the team worked for nine months modelling the data to produce new GIS layers to add to Powerco’s GIS mapping system which identifies high-risk poles and locations,” says Karen Frew.
The programme, which began last year, has mitigated or eliminated the risk to vehicle versus poles at 87 pole sites, and is part of a 10-year programme of work on all 845 identified locations.
“Our team works with roading engineers from Waka Kotahi and various local council roading engineers to investigate options and plan projects,” says Karen Frew.
The preferred method is to remove the poles, but other mitigation can include barriers, roadway alterations and area design reviews.
“Our vision, and challenge, is for all electricity distribution businesses (EDBs) to adopt this initiative to help save lives - if only one fatal or serious accident is prevented with this initiative the exercise was well worth carrying out,” says Karen Frew.
The award was presented at the EEA Conference in Christchurch on Thursday 12 September.
“Winning the award is wonderful recognition, but the real win is the potential this initiative has to save lives and prevent serious harm on our roads,” says Powerco GM Electricity Karen Frew.
Driven by the knowledge that over the past 40 years there has been an average of four to five fatalities and 20 serious harm accidents involving Powerco’s poles each year, Powerco worked with Waka Kotahi to look at crash data for the past four decades on all roads within the Powerco electricity footprint.
“Together with GIS experts, Orbica, the team worked for nine months modelling the data to produce new GIS layers to add to Powerco’s GIS mapping system which identifies high-risk poles and locations,” says Karen Frew.
The programme, which began last year, has mitigated or eliminated the risk to vehicle versus poles at 87 pole sites, and is part of a 10-year programme of work on all 845 identified locations.
“Our team works with roading engineers from Waka Kotahi and various local council roading engineers to investigate options and plan projects,” says Karen Frew.
The preferred method is to remove the poles, but other mitigation can include barriers, roadway alterations and area design reviews.
“Our vision, and challenge, is for all electricity distribution businesses (EDBs) to adopt this initiative to help save lives - if only one fatal or serious accident is prevented with this initiative the exercise was well worth carrying out,” says Karen Frew.
The award was presented at the EEA Conference in Christchurch on Thursday 12 September.
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