Reference: Manhole fill-level monitoring on highways

Customer Expressway operator
Goal Early warning on water levels
Solution Octopus sensor

About the company

Granvia Operation is a 100% subsidiary company of VINCI Highways. The main focus of the company is 24/7 maintenance of entrusted motorways with the aim to provide the highest possible security, quality of service and minimal environmental footprint. Granvia Operation is responsible for the operation and maintenance of the motorway between the towns of Nitra and Tekovské Nemce, which is 51,4 km long, and maintenance of the northern bypass highway near Banská Bystrica.

Logo of Granvia company.

Logo of Vinci highways.

Problem description

Granvia Operation services manholes where oil is filtered from the rain water drained off the road. These manholes do not fill regularly and if they get overflowing, it poses a danger for safety. Granvia Operation was looking for water levels monitoring system that would warn them about rising levels in time. Manholes are as deep as 10m.


Expectations

„One of the duties and priority goals of our company is to ensure the availability of the contracted services that we provide in the entire territory of the motorway between Nitra and Tekovské Nemce. This is why it is necessary for us to keep a permanent overview of the status of all the equipment which is essential to guarantee the quality of our services. As the territory that we maintain is an expressway, remote monitoring is an ideal solution for us.“

Marek Holič, Deputy General Manager, Granvia Operation, a.s.

Implementation of Overflow Warning System

In addition to using Sensoneo smart sensors in waste bins at the service areas on R1 PR1BINA expressway, the concessionaire and the operator are now in a pilot phase of using smart sensors for oil separators. The company has decided to monitor oil separators that are located along the R1 PR1BINA expressway and are used to diverse the overflowing liquids from the road.

Normally, in times of rainfall, it is required to physically inspect all the separators located in 52 different places.

Sensoneo Octopus sensor for manhole monitoring.

52 Octopus sensors to the oil separators

In May of 2019, Sensoneo installed 52 Octopus sensors to the oil separators.

Sensoneo Octopus Sensor is an enterprise-class device intended as an overflow warning system. It measures the water level in a manhole. It’s fully adjustable for different depths. Thanks to adjustable water level indicators (tentacles), Octopus can detect up to 3 different thresholds.

When the water level rises and reaches one of the water level indicators (tentacles), the customer receives an immediate warning. If water levels are calm, the sensor sends one maintenance message a day just for the record. Octopus Overflow Sensor may operate fully independent on GSM and GPRS network.

Additionally, the sensor measures temperature. The sensor is powered by replaceable batteries which frequently inform the operator about their capacity.

Immediate benefits

Smart monitoring is one of many steps undertaken on project R1 PR1BINA to deepen our environmental approach and work towards a responsible optimization of our services,” explained the motivation Marek Holič.

The early warnings proved to be beneficial shortly after installation. Just a few days after the region went through heavy rain period and the system immediately warned about particular oil separators that reached the level that requires an intervention. Thanks to that, the company was able to act quickly, specifically and avoid the occurrence of any critical situation.