Eastern / 24seven and Brand deliver ‘Plans In Vans’ to Field Engineers.

‘Plans In Vans’ was conceived 2 years ago as a mobile data system to be deployed to Eastern’s 300 jointers and distribution system technicians responsible for maintaining and repairing Eastern’s electricity distribution network.

It was rolled out 1 year ago, and since then a new company has been formed, called 24seven, which manages the distribution networks for both Eastern and London, and the engineers – and hence the project itself – has moved to 24seven.

Eastern’s aim was to computerise their mapping and diagram system. The maps that the engineers used were paper and cloth, or microfiche if they were lucky. The main ones that were required were schematic switching diagrams and cable location diagrams.

It was apparent that when an emergency occurred it was time-consuming and costly for the engineer to have to drive to a district office to view and collect the paper copies especially given the much larger areas over which emergency staff work. And modifying them after changes were made was a nightmare. So clearly there was a need to store the images electronically and access them in real time. However the real challenge was to reliably extend that information to the engineers who could be anywhere within the region.

Firstly Eastern in conjunction with Intergraph transferred the maps and data in raster and vector format to servers, then web-enabled access to those servers. This enabled anyone on the LAN with a web browser to view the images. But how could Eastern reliably provide access to the same system for the mobile engineers?

Firstly they equipped them with Toshiba Tecra PCs. PCs were chosen because it was a much safer and future-proofed bet compared with CE or other platforms, and there were far more applications and tools available. The use of the PC meant that a sensible screen size for working with maps was possible.

Ruggedised PCs were looked at seriously but the final solution was a ‘normal’ portable protected by a briefcase that also contained the printer. This allowed the complete kit to be removed from the vehicle for use if required; eg. for use within a substation. Contrary to advice given by certain GSM networks the same mobile phone is used for both data and voice – the briefcase allows the phone to be used with a proper car kit for safety reasons, and Apollo maintains the logged-on session even when the phone is being used for voice.

There are heavy-duty connectors to allow the kit to be connected. Removal of the kit from the vehicle at night means that there is less risk of it being stolen.

The next decision was what communications network to use. PSTN was no good because the engineer would want to download information whilst driving to site and some potential locations are far from telephones. Packet networks such as RAM were dismissed due to the throughput restrictions for large file transfers. Analogue PMR could only support 2400bps data in its 12.5kHz channels. GSM seemed the only viable option due to speed (which was acceptable), coverage and a good commercial relationship with Vodafone.

Eastern chose Ericsson 688s and Intel data cards. The final two pieces in the jigsaw were Brand and Bentleys. Bentleys provided client software which provided an off-line gazetteer and the ability to red-line the diagrams, both of which added extra functionality beyond the basic browser. And Brand supplied Apollo to give each engineer a full LAN connection at all times via GSM, handling the calls and data transfers between both ends. Of course there were many sceptics who did not believe that GSM circuit-switched data would be fast enough or reliable enough for transferring large images. However a trial quickly proved otherwise.

In particular, Apollo proved that the data transfer times were acceptable (ie. a few minutes for a complete hi-res image), that even if calls dropped whilst the engineer was driving they would be recovered without intervention, that data integrity was 100% (which is vital), and that the GSM bills were only 20% of what they would have been without spoofing. Those factors gave Eastern the business case to roll it out, which they did one year ago.

One year on, the 300 live engineers find it particularly significant when they get an out-of-hours callout, and when the district office is closed and probably many miles away. The engineer simply uses the Bentleys software and the browser to request the plans, which are downloaded whilst he/she is driving to the incident. Thanks to Apollo the engineers have the confidence in the system to be able to trust it and rely on it, even though they are not PC experts.

There are still times when an engineer collects the paper map, for example when it is routine work or when he has to collect spares or tools from the district office, so common sense prevails. But for those emergencies, GSM data has dramatically improved response times without breaking the bank.

Now that the project is under the wing of 24seven they are discussing extending it to the London engineers, and as 24seven bids for other managed service contracts they are able to use Plans In Vans as a major tool.