According to the RAC, the UK currently has over 1 million potholes that need repairing.
For motorists, each one feels like it takes months to fix, has days of road closures for repairs, and is weeks until it inevitably opens up again.
Meanwhile, council budgets are more pressurised than ever, with an ever-growing list of things they need to cover. When council teams do get round to fixing a pothole, finding the right site can be time-consuming, particularly in rural areas. Postcodes can cover multiple square kilometres, and not all country roads have clear street addresses. Lengthy instructions and long strings of GPS coordinates are difficult to follow, and inevitably, searching for the right spot wastes valuable time and money.
So how can councils manage road repairs in a way that saves time, money, and manpower? Well, what3words and JCB might just have the solution.
How does what3words work?
what3words is an innovative British app that has divided the entire world into 3m x 3m squares. Each of these squares has been assigned its own unique combination of three words. For instance, the door of 10 Downing Street in London is ///slurs.this.shark.
The words themselves are randomised and meaningless. But they enable excellent accuracy when it comes to pinpointing locations. So excellent, in fact, that UK councils have started using what3words to make their operations more efficient.
But what are the advantages of the what3words system over postcodes? Well, when there’s a fallen tree, or a broken traffic light, or indeed a pothole in the road, councils can locate it to the nearest 3m – making it much faster and easier to find than using postcodes.
How do you use what3words to get potholes fixed faster?
One of the major benefits of the what3words system is that the general public has easy access to it. If you come across a pothole on the road, you’re not necessarily going to know what postcode you’re in – or be able to find out easily. But when the free what3words app is so accessible, it’s easy to get an accurate location and report it to the local authority.
This also streamlines the response process, as the unique 3-word address can be inputted straight into mapping and navigation systems that accept what3words addresses, or they can be converted to coordinates, allowing maintenance teams to navigate to the exact spot – or passed on to third-party contractors if required.
Staff safety is another benefit, as if there’s an emergency on site, fire and rescue services will be able to use the what3words location to find them faster.
Finally, once the pothole is repaired, what3words offers an easy way to keep a record of repairs for inspection, to help ensure they’re well-maintained.
It’s not surprising, then, that over 100 councils across the UK use what3words to make their day-to-day operations run more smoothly.
From report to repair with JCB Pothole Pro
So you’ve submitted the report using what3words. The council has assessed and prioritised the pothole, according to factors like how deep the pothole is, and how busy the road is. The repair has been scheduled in. Now it’s time to decide how it’s executed – temporary, or permanent?
On the surface, temporary repairs are faster and cheaper. However, they might be a false economy, as 97% of temporary defects require a return visit within 6 months.
In order to get the job done right, JCB developed its own specialist road repair machine: the Pothole Pro.