The Essency + Gaist collaboration will appear in Australia for the first time and will see the digital mapping and analysis company transform the management of the continent’s highways.
Gaist’s detailed roads intelligence is to be made accessible to the 77 council areas within the Local Government Association of Queensland (LCAQ), Australia’s second largest state, following the tie-up with Essency Consulting.
The move into the continent will also see Gaist undertake a trial for Main Roads Western Australia (WA), the body which is responsible for the delivery and management of a safe and efficient main road network across WA.
States and transport agencies across the continent are increasingly embracing digitalised techniques and processes, including digital twins, to help them meet the challenges they face around the operation and maintenance of their highways infrastructure.
The challenges include the volume of network – Queensland has the longest state-controlled road network of any Australian state or territory, with 33,336km of roads – as well as the need for more sustainable approaches to infrastructure build and maintenance and the demands placed on ageing infrastructure by growing populations.
Main Roads Western Australia has acknowledged that advances in technology and new innovations are changing how it delivers it services and creating new expectations around service levels and journey experiences from its customers.
The new partnership will see Essency Consulting capturing roads data for processing and analysis by Gaist. The consultancy has in-depth experience of working with clients in the continent. It is currently undertaking a region-wide maturity assessment of the South Coast Region against ISO55001 Asset Management Standards for TMR Queensland.
Gaist, which launched in 2007, is now active in five continents. It exploits emerging technologies to provide an unrivalled level of detail and analysis about the condition of highways and roadscapes to inform infrastructure planning and to support funding cases.
The new offering will be promoted by the Australian Road Research Board (ARRB), the transport research organisation which supports road agencies, all levels of government, academia, and companies in the private sector with services including safe road design and independent advice on intelligent transport systems.
For more information on Gaist’s work providing deep insights into the road and roadscape to organisations in the UK and internationally, please contact Jake.Lawson@gaist.co.uk
