The Challenges of Street Lighting Maintenance

Local Authorities face the daunting task of maintaining millions of lighting columns everyday.

Vehicle mounts continue to evolve to meet core applications of street lighting, including cleaning, inspection and lamp replacement. Now new innovations from Versalift will help eliminate the backlog of street lighting maintenance.

The Problem: The efficiency of a van-mounted platform depends on the versatility of that one piece of plant to multi-function. It needs to be able to carry a fair load of materials, to reach all awkward areas, including over parked vehicles and any other roadside obstruction, and still give the operator the confidence to carry out work without having doubts about the machine.

ET38NF on 50C13

The saving of time on a maintenance operation is also a valuable tool in the war on productivity and profit. It gives the user the possibility of passing the saving on to the client to produce a more financially attractive budget.

Using a less well designed vehicle or just hiring in anything that reaches the target height, means the operator has to think even more about where he needs to be, what load he can safely carry and many other aspects of the job. This reduces his working area and the number of sites he is able to attend during daily operation. It means the contractor/user will need to look at his programme of works and combine his fleet to suit the jobs in hand.

The Work at Height Regulations are also having a major impact on the way jobs are approached. The use of ladders is now completely frowned on for anything over 2 metres. This means a major rethink on footway lighting, tunnel lighting, and many more low level sites.

The Solution: After listening to the problems experienced by their customers Versalift have designed and implemented key features which make up their new 'Street Lighting Pack' (SLP).

The SLP is made of 3 key options, jacks from bucket, extended outreach and walk in bucket. Each option has its own significant benefits to the operator, making his job quicker and easier while still working safely, and thereby increasing efficiency.

Jacks from bucket - Street lighting engineers need a fast turnaround from job to job. This feature offers the ability to use the platform without deploying the jacks, facilitating straight up and down operation (subject to base vehicle, and may be restricted to one-man operation on some applications). The operator can get straight under the lamp head without having to deploy the jacks, saving valuable time on each column.

An ET36NF showing the operator working above the vehicle without the use of jacks, jacks from bucket option.

By using higher GVW vehicles a restricted rotation over the rear of the vehicle can also be achieved. The scope of the arc during jackless operation depends on the stability of the platform/vehicle combination. As much as 60 degrees movement can be achieved on some models. Should you wish to operate the platform normally, the jacks can be deployed from the bucket (in dock) and full rotation is restored.

Some vehicle-mounts are designed for wholly jack-free operation by a single operative throughout the platform's working envelope. Uniquely offering this capability are Versalift's lightweight NEXS platforms (up to 10.5m working height) mounted on compact 2.9t and 3.5t vans.

The time gains of working without stabilisers, even after just a few changes of location or work position, soon make an impact on productivity. While being quicker - a big advantage during an emergency callout - working jack-free gives greater flexibility to position the vehicle in congested space. It also eliminates trip hazards to the general public and the worry of damage to block paving and decorative landscaping.

Extended outreach - To date, maximum horizontal outreach has been governed by safety criteria for two people working in the basket. Versalift has engineered a new load sensing system using a load cell that is more accurate and reliable than other methods. A load-sensing cell located in the end of the fly boom allows extended safe working outreach when operating with just one person in the bucket (120kg SWL), making it extremely useful when having to reach over parked cars or other obstructions to reach low level lighting.

An ET36NF showing the extended outreach for 1-man operation.

For instance, 5m and 6m columns in many city areas need parking bays but column maintenance has always been a problem due to their location at the rear of the footway, but this new advance provides valuable extra outreach for the single operator while remaining within safety guidelines and leaving two-person outreach unaffected. It increases the safe working outreach by around a metre when one-person is on the platform. This extra reach can save significant time by reducing the number of machine set-up/set-down cycles during a shift.

Example: On our Eurotel range (13.0m to 15.0m working height) the new load sensing offers an extended horizontal outreach of up to 8.5m for a single operative. The two-person outreach of 7.3m (200kg SWL) is still competitive with comparable vans.

Walk in bucket - Versalift's new walk-in cage is an ergonomically designed alternative to conventional bob-under buckets. This user-friendly option features a self-closing, inward opening door, integral finger guardrail and 2 harness anchors. You can simply walk onto the platform carrying your tools or materials without the usual duck-under action required with a fixed guardrail.

Walk-in-bucket

The solid door gives the operator greater protection from the wind and rain, and an enhanced sense of security at height.

The design of the new bucket has been possible because it is constructed from fibreglass, used also for Versalift's standard duck-under buckets. Fibreglass has strength characteristics not present in polycarbonate used by some vehicle mount manufacturers.

Versalift has compared the merits of the two types of material in the past and found that fibreglass offers important advantages, including safety. Arising from the comparative behaviour of the two materials in response to an impact, with the polycarbonate bucket, the point of an initial impact is hard, if not impossible to spot. This impact load then needs a route to transfer stresses that can be through the mechanical components of the boom. There is often no visible evidence of the effects of this load transfer, which may lead to problems later on.

In contrast, a white fibreglass bucket will show impact damage. If on inspection the damage is light it can be repaired and re-sprayed. If it is heavy, then this is a signal that the condition of other components needs to be checked for potential damage.

Fibreglass cages are also an excellent insulator and meet the growing demand for different levels of insulation, and forms an integral part of a fully compliant 3kv insulated machine. The colour of a polycarbonate can also fade over time and cannot be maintained by painting, so the material is aesthetically less pleasing in the long term.

Spare payload - Market surveys indicate that a significant number of users of van-mounts value payload for equipment over platform reach.

Spare payload is a must in all modern street lighting vehicles. The ability to be multi-functional is something all operators and maintenance contractors must strive for. Good racking and shelving is often required in van-mounts used for lighting maintenance, plus generous spare payload on top of that - typically 1200kg to 1300kg. This is needed to carry a wide range of spare parts, including heavy items such as modern sealed lamp units and bags of cement to reinstate damaged lighting columns.

Versalift platform engineering leaves additional spare payload for accommodating the needs of the street lighting contractor.

Versalift have already taken several orders of vehicle-mounted platforms with the new SLP options fitted, for companies including Scottish & Southern Energy Contracting & Mews Fitzpatrick.

26th June 2006