Project Summary

This project will deliver a mature prototype geo-spatial technology, that meets the challenge of maintaining situational awareness of highway network impacts during major incidents. Stormchain will enable a swift and proactive risk-based response to the loss of bridges, structures, and community access.

Project Achievements

Activities Stormchain 1.0 went into TRIG as a level 2 proof-of-concept system requiring testing and editing to progress to prototype stage. The testing and refinement of the system in Cumbria and East Riding within the TRIG timeframe provided an invaluable opportunity to develop and integrate significant new features and functions into the system. PIARC World Winter Congress UK Cold Comfort

Conclusions

With these changes embedded Stormchain was operationally tested in East Riding. The system worked exactly as expected, creating a tangible buzz in the operations room as live data was fed in from the operative’s apps in the field directly to the manager in the control room. The Director summarised this experience: ‘Stormchain gives us the ability to survey, assess, prioritise and archive information in a matter of minutes and hours what took us days and weeks’. Stormchain has successfully attained and surpassed the TRIG target TRL4.

Next Steps

Our objective is to commercialise the product as Software as a Service (SaaS) as soon as possible. This will directly support and be part of the ‘new approach’ to sector resilience. With DfT support we will be testing Stormchain with up to 10 councils during the major east coast flood exercise in September (FloodEx22). Our target is to deploy Stormchain across at least 30% of the 210 UK Highway Authorities by month 36 (June 2025), whilst also continuing to explore opportunities to offer the system to potential international customers.