The City of Cape Town has unveiled a new pipe inspection device, the robotic crawler, which will allow the city to more effectively plan sewerage maintenance programmes and identify potential blockages before they cause overflows.
Fitted with an on-board camera, the R2.4-million crawler was remotely controlled by an operator and lowered into a sewer manhole, from which the device relayed closed-circuit television footage to an above-ground mobile monitoring facility, where city staff would use specialist software to interpret the data and log information on the sewers that required maintenance.
The device would record damage and obstructions such as cracks, breakages, joint displacements and faults, enabling the city to determine the exact condition of every underground pipe.
Four vehicles and night-shift crews would eventually be operational, enabling the City of Cape Town to inspect about 4 500 m of pipeline a day.
“According to the latest census, Cape Town’s population has increased by 30% in the past decade. The growing population and new developments place increased pressure on our sewer network.
“We, therefore, have to plan ahead to meet the growing demand and ensure that existing infrastructure is operating as it should. Considering that the city clears over 200 blockages a day, this initiative has the potential to free up significant funding for providing better services to the residents of Cape Town,” mayoral committee member for utility services Ernest Sonnenberg said in a statement.