Sustainable highway drain clean boosts road viaduct safety

Drainage engineers from Lanes Group plc have cleaned and surveyed nearly a mile of highway drainage pipework serving a major road viaduct.

Jet vac tanker and CCTV survey teams from the Lanes St Neots depot carried out the work on the A10 Kingsmead Viaduct near Ware, in Hertfordshire.

In a two-week programme, they cleaned the 225mm-diameter main carrier pipe running along the central reservation of the dual carriageway trunk road.

They also cleaned 73 lateral 100mm-diameter gullies along the 1.4-kilometre stretch of road which included approaches to the viaduct over two rivers.

Minimising flood risks

Lanes carried out the work as part of planned maintenance of the main road on behalf of Octavius Infrastructure, working on behalf of Hertfordshire County Council.

Matt Jinks, Area Development Manager for the Lanes St Neots depot, said: “We were very pleased to support Octavius Infrastructure in carrying out this important highway maintenance project.

“Keeping highway drainage systems flowing freely is vital to road safety because it minimises the risk of water pooling on the carriageway during periods of heavy rain, which are becoming more frequent due to climate change.

“Our ability to combine the latest specialist vehicle technology with processing of data by our national CCTV survey centre maximised project’s productivity and sustainability.”

More productive water jetting

Lanes used a recycler jet vac tanker to desilt the highway drains. Its ability to filter and reuse its water allows crews to stay on station for longer between water refills.

This increases productivity by over 60% compared with a standard jet vac tanker and uses less water and fuel, reducing the process’s carbon footprint for Lanes and for clients.

Drainage engineers used advanced mini robotic camera to capture HD video footage insider the highways drain, allowing its condition to be accurately assessed.

Cutting carbon footprints

The footage and other data was sent directly from site to Lanes’ CCTV survey centre in Manchester for processing.

This speeds up the data reporting process while eliminating paper use and unnecessary vehicle journeys, again, reducing the project’s carbon footprint.

The Lanes drainage teams carried out the highway drains cleaning work under traffic management organised by Octavius Infrastructure. Catchpits and soakaway gulleys were also cleaned.

Opened in 1976, the Kingsmead Viaduct is 716 metres long and carries the A10 road at a height of 65ft over the River Lea and New River, and the Hertford East branch railway line.

Find out more

Talk to Lanes about its highways drainage services, including CCTV drainage surveying, remote access chamber surveying, highway drains desilting, culvert cleaning, and drain and culvert lining. Telephone: 0161 778 2266. Email: sales@lanesgroup.co.uk.