1Spatial has extended its partnership with UK Power Networks (UKPN). The UK electric network distribution, which maintains electricity networks across London, the South East, and the East of England, has signed a $1 million SaaS contract to utilise the 1Streetworks platform for the next 15 months, with an option for a one-year extension.
The announcement follows the contract that UKPN signed in February 2024. After a trial of 1Spatial’s Traffic Management Plan Automation (“TMPA”) solution, under the 1Streetworks brand in the UK (“1Streetworks”).
UKPN manages around 190,000km of cables and undertakes approximately 40,000 works on the highway each year across its operating area. Over the last 18 months, UKPN has seen significant benefits from automating the production of a proportion of the traffic management plans, diversion routing, and asset inventory lists associated with these works in the Southern Region.
It reduced the average time it took to quote on plans from around 5-6 days down to around 2 days. Streetwise has also increased efficiency in other areas by around 25%.
Claire Milverton, 1Spatial CEO, said, “We are delighted to agree this landmark contract with UK Power Networks. It is testament to the demonstrable value provided by our innovative 1Streetworks solution. We are proud UK Power Networks have recognised the significant efficiency savings, improved customer services and a reduction in road closures that can be achieved. We look forward to continuing to work with UK Power Networks to unlock further value across their network.
“We believe the benefits of the UK Power Networks programme has value for all electricity, gas, water and telecommunications companies and has the potential to become a blueprint for the organisations that work in, or coordinate, essential work on the highway.
“This clear commercial validation and growing industry awareness are supporting a steadily growing pipeline, which we are focused on converting.”
What happens next
UKPN plans to roll out 1Streetworks to help plan and deliver up to 30% of its works. It plans to extend coverage across all three regions: London, the South East, and the East of England. It will also look to adopt the solution in other teams, specifically for network faults and reactive works.
Furthermore, 1Spatial estimates that by using the 1Streetworks SaaS solution, UKPN could reduce the amount of road closures by 39%. It will also enable improvements in the time to quote and the average time to connect with customers. Additionally, these will deliver significant benefits to customers, consumers, and the public, with reduced traffic disruption.
UKPC is now able to create a plan within minutes which complies to the high safety levels required by legislation for electrical work. The optimised plans will also reduce traffic disruption and improve collaboration across the supply chain, making the process more efficient. Neither 1Spatial nor UKPN has indicated that deploying the software will deliver any overall cost savings.
Richard Boissieux, Head of 1Streetworks at UK Power Networks, said, “We are delighted to extend our partnership with 1Spatial. The 1Streetworks platform has been highly successful in streamlining traffic management plans, enabling better communication with customers and highway authorities and improving the speed and accuracy of 1Streetworks. We now look forward to seeing those benefits more widely across our network.”
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
This is a significant expansion of the contract with UKPN, demonstrating the value that 1Spatial has delivered to the organisation. What the firms have not done is indicate any actual cost savings that the initial phase has delivered. However, it seems likely that the Return on Investment for this solution will be delivered quickly, with the planned expansion of software use across the entire organisation.
Other distribution firms will be taking note of the success that UKPC has had with the software. With some details of the initial rollout shared in a webinar between the two companies, it will be interesting to see how the much wider project goes over the next 12 months.
