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Driving a better way forward

Jurisdiction: Queensland


Unitywater travels over 3.9 million kilometres each year maintaining water and wastewater services for our region. How might we use our vehicle data to benefit people, planet and productivity in the future? How might we improve our commitment to environmental sustainability, simplified work practices and people safety using vehicle data?

The Unitywater fleet travels over 3.9 million kilometres each year, transporting personnel, materials and equipment, vital to our work maintaining water and wastewater services to keep communities healthy across the Noosa, Sunshine Coast and Moreton Bay regions.

Unitywater delivers safe, reliable 24/7 water and wastewater services to those UNESCO Biosphere recognised regions in our service area. Our current operational model relies on vehicles, which have an impact on our effort to achieve net zero targets in a fast growing region.

Our vehicle management system maintains a rich and detailed set of data on our fleet movements, and we think there’s a great opportunity to better use this data to develop valuable insights to improve our operation to benefit people, planet, and productivity.

Some useful stats:

• Annual fleet maintenance budget = ~$5million
• Split of Planned v Reactive jobs completed per annum = 68% / 32%

Use open data and incorporate any, or all, of the following considerations to showcase your ideas:
People impacts

  • ⁃ liveability and local amenity impacts
  • ⁃ safety and wellbeing
  • ⁃ quality of daily work experience

Planet and climate impacts

  • ⁃ emissions impacts
  • ⁃ air quality impacts
  • ⁃ resource (fuel) extraction and use
  • ⁃ liveability in community

Productivity and tools

  • ⁃ waste mitigation
  • ⁃ maintenance
  • ⁃ distance/time impacts on operational needs
  • ⁃ skilled staff attraction and retention

Plant and Fleet

  • ⁃ type of vehicle
  • ⁃ technology advancements
  • ⁃ location of Unitywater service centres and depots

Solutions might include insights such as highlighting hot-spots and their impacts in terms of time, cost, and social and environmental considerations.

Utilise Unitywater’s dataset of the daily movement and use of 280 trucks and vehicles, including:

• Description of the make and models of each vehicle
• Vehicle allocation by internal Unitywater business unit
• Number of vehicle incidents annually: 85 (36 at fault)

Local Councils have several sensors around the region. Please take time to look through the available data related to these and other IoT devices in case they can provide even richer analysis or outcomes.

Additional Information

Image credit: Unitywater.

Eligibility: Must use the Unitywater dataset. Must use at least one other dataset. Preference will be given to those providing solutions relevant to the following local Council regions: City of Moreton Bay, Sunshine Coast Council, Noosa Council.

Entry: Challenge entry is available to all teams in Australia.

Dataset Highlight

Unitywater Vehicle Management Data

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