Well into its first year of use, NKAPC’s online tool that allows jurisdictions and utilities to coordinate road construction and maintenance projects is proving to be very successful and saving participants a lot of money.
Currently, the Kenton and Campbell County Fiscal Courts, a number of cities in each county, the water and sanitation districts, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, Duke Energy, and just recently Cincinnati Bell, upload their construction projects to the GIS-based database called Envista.
All participating entities can see current and upcoming projects through the central communication tool, and can identify conflicts and opportunities to work together.
“This tool is helping cut down on the time spent coordinating,” said NKAPC’s deputy director for GIS administration, Trisha Brush, GISP. “This empowers each of the participating jurisdictions to use their road construction and maintenance dollars wisely—which ultimately benefits the tax- and rate-payers who pay the bills.”
The City of Covington recently used information from the system to collaborated with the water district on a few streets where the city had plans to repave and the water district had plans to replace water mains. “Coordinating this work through Envista saved the city $18,000,” said Mike Yeager, PE, MPA, assistant Covington city engineer.
“The program made an immediate impact on the way the City of Covington coordinates utility work with our resurfacing projects,” said Yeager. “Not only are we provided with an email as soon as a potential conflict is detected, the city and the various utility companies are now able to coordinate and prioritize projects into the future based upon each others needs and budgets.”
Brush says this is just one example of the savings that program participants are realizing by collaborating in this regional effort. This, she asserts, will benefit everyone because these savings will allow more road work to be completed.
NKAPC is wrapping up phase four of the project currently with plans to finish uploading all remaining jurisdictions into the database. “After this phase is completed, we plan to start a user’s group for all the jurisdictions participating in the program,” Brush said.
The quarterly user’s group meetings will give NKAPC feedback on the software and allow users to put a face with a name for those with whom they’re coordinating.
The Envista online coordination tool is being funded jointly by Kenton and Campbell County Fiscal Courts, the Kenton and Campbell County PVAs, Northern Kentucky Water District, SD1, and NKAPC.