Derby City Council has managed to achieve a road repair output improvements of 250% from 50 square meters per shift up to 175 square metres.
This has been achieved with the help of the Multihog which the council will also use for other areas of application including snow ploughing and de-icing of cycleways and footways as well as flood water pumping for instance.
Dave Kinsey, Head of Highways Asset Management, Grounds Maintenance and Arboriculture said: “Streetpride as a service encompasses a wide variety of duties, so the Multihog multi-purpose ethos enables us to try to do more with less, more effectively than we may have operated traditionally.
“The ability to seamlessly switch from road planing to siding out as well as having that resilience for adverse weather with the flood water pump and winter kit makes this a very valuable asset – we already want another one!
Initially, we were apprehensive of the advantages of the Multihog – especially the productivity of the planer, but I am delighted by the overwhelmingly positive end-results. The new machine coupled with the highway maintenance team’s willingness to change, assess other options and their hard work has led to some impressive results.”
The increased productivity achieved by the Multihog alone could equate to an extra 45,724.01m² of permanent repairs per year to support the 759Km of network maintained by Derby City Council.
The combination of the Multihog with the 400mm wide front planer attachment, comprising of 53 carbide tipped cutting teeth, provides the perfect platform to consistently cut through any surfaces such as HRA (hot rolled asphalt) and other materials to permanently repair the
road.
A rear mounted dust-suppression system holds a 250litre water tank feeding water to the planer teeth to eradicate dust and preserve the life of the picks.
Highways Operations Team Leader Scott McDonald said: ” “The Multihog has allowed my teams to more than double their output over the last 13
weeks. It has been really nice to see the changes within my teams learning new elements of the machines and new ways of working, providing a good quality of repair in the most efficient and cost-effective way.
We are using the Multihog alongside a paving machine, sweeper and other equipment which has allowed us to maintain high levels of output and ultimately carrying out large resurfacing work in house at cost, reducing the need to rely on outside contractor help.”
February 2020 was the wettest on record for the UK and rapid yet persistent precipitation throughout the year can, at times, cause Derby distress as the flood gates open. In a bid to battle against severe wet weather, the easily interchangeable, high-volume flood water pump for the Multihog can shift as much as 6,000 litres of water per minute to help prevent flooding in difficult to reach areas.
The Multihog’s water pump attachment itself was developed for the Fire and Rescue Service and transforms the all-terrain and four-wheel drive machine into a self-propelled pump.
A rear mounted 1200litre stainless steel de-icing sprayer tank with rear sectional spraying boom in conjunction with a front mounted hydraulically controlled snow plough provides added resilience for Derby Streetpride in winter too.
The articulated pivot-steer allows for maximum manoeuvrability around street furniture and parked cars whilst the compact machine size makes the Multihog ideal for city centre footway winter work.
The Multihog can spray a total width of up to 10 metres which can be regulated by the operator from inside the cab to control width and velocity whilst efficiency is ensured by the CAN-bus system to minimise waste.
Multevo are the UK distributor of the Multihog range and 2020 marks a decade of delivering innovation to customers.
In addition to outright sales, Multevo also own the world’s largest hire fleet of Multihog machines and also support customers by delivering an award-winning highway maintenance service using the Multihog.
As a result, Multevo can call around 40% of all UK councils customers as well as all major airports and tier one contractors. In recent years, Multevo has also strengthened the engineering and aftersales side of the business by guaranteeing an engineer call out within 30 minutes.
Mr McDonald said: “The machine and service from Multevo has been second to none. When we called on Multevo to support with an engineer it felt like one arrived before I’d finished the call – it was that prompt! This really gives us confidence moving forwards and rivals anyone out there.
Derby City Council has been using the Multihog machine since Late April 2020, for around 13 weeks, at the time we took advantage of the quiet roads within the height of the COVID 19 pandemic to keep the road network serviceable for all key workers. We have completed 11,431.19m² in that time over 23 sites.”
