The utility industry is in the middle of an infrastructure boom and as every sector powers ahead with their own major projects, there’s never been a better time to collaborate.
Between water authorities launching major capital programs to service growth, the National Energy Market getting a renewable overhaul, nbn’s nation-wide rollout and not to mention the upcoming Olympics – Australia’s essential services are expanding faster than ever before.
While each of these developments have customer’s needs at their heart, the work required to deliver this new infrastructure comes with unavoidable disruptions to the community. And with each sector embarking on their own critical projects, these communities sometimes barely have time to breathe before another round of construction works begin.
But what if there was a way for all utilities, road authorities and councils to work together?
This was the future the Streets Opening Coordination Council (SOCC) envisioned when it made the decision to become a national organisation.
Sharing across state lines
SOCC CEO, Nabil Issa, explained that Queensland is the first stop on the organisation’s national rollout journey.
“I’m currently planning the rollout of SOCC in Queensland, which is going to be our test bed, and June 2025 is our target date for bedding that in,” he said.
“We’ve had authorities in Queensland approach us requesting SOCC’s operation be extended to the south-east. They acknowledged the success of SOCC in New South Wales and wanted to promote a similar culture between Queensland water, gas, electricity, telecommunications, councils, transport authorities and railway operators – a culture that brings all stakeholders together and promotes a unified approach to working in public road reserves. So, whenever there’s work happening on a road reserve, SOCC’s simple, yet powerful iWORCS platform provides registered stakeholders visibility of each other’s work schedules and indentifies opportunities to align them. An essential target of iWORCS is to ensure that if work schedules cannot be combined, they are at least implemented in the correct sequence.”
Mr Issa said the goal is to get everyone working together as if all projects were one, rather than having multiple projects at different times in the same area.
“From the community perspective, they would see one government working for them. They shouldn’t see the local council one week, a power company the second week and then a telecommunications carrier the week after – they’ll see everybody working together to deliver value to the community,” he said.
Mr Issa said this will greatly reduce interruptions of public services and help avoid extended roadworks and disruptions to the community.
“That also brings the opportunity to share resources and reduce costs – not just the cost to the organisations, but also the cost of disruptions to the community,” he said.
“When we look at cases where there’s been lack of coordination – and what it has cost individual entities – many say they would do things differently if they had visibility of each other’s works and the opportunity to do it again, and we can actually quantify what costs can be saved by working together.”
Another key goal for SOCC’s national expansion is to provide a platform for knowledge sharing not just between states, but between different sectors too.
Mr Issa explained that many of the challenges a water authority in one state might be facing are applicable to utilities in other sectors – and he wants their learnings and solutions to be available across the country.
“The structure of SOCC will be a board that governs the national framework, and then under that board will be state-based chapter committees – and each committee will have a representative on the national board to make sure there is consistency and alignment nationally,” he said.
“[That means there’ll be] consistency in the governance, but also a mechanism to share information across states. We want to be learning from each other, rather than each state reinventing the wheel and keeping everything to themselves – we want that experience to be shared nationally.”
A history of collaboration
SOCC was originally founded in 1909, but it was focussed on the Sydney Metro area until 1995, when it expanded to encompass the whole of New South Wales. Now the organisation is bringing more than a century of experience to authorities nation-wide, and Mr Issa said that the way it embodies collaboration has been key to its success.
“When it comes to decision making, SOCC very much operates on the principle of consensus. We don’t try to force outcomes if we don’t have the support of every member. We want all members to be behind every strategic decision to ensure its success and longevity.
“Another of our key learnings from more than 100 years in operation is that members need to be able to measure the value of their involvement with SOCC, we ensure that members get back way more than they put in,” he said.
With this renewed national focus also comes new logo, which was developed in collaboration with the marketing specialists at SOCC’s commercial partner, PelicanCorp.
“The old logo had the New South Wales map at its core and a few circles representing different utility services. The new logo is made up of colour-coded utility services that are shaped to mimic the map of Australia to signify SOCC’s expanded area of operations,” he said.
“These colours are detailed in the Australian Standard AS5488, so yellow represents gas, orange represents power, white represents telecommunications, and so on. We also wanted to link the logo back to the history of SOCC, so we refer to 1909 as the year it was established.”
An even better tomorrow
Both SOCC and Mr Issa’s vision for the future is a national framework that supports essential service providers to plan, build and learn together.
“What I’d like to see right across the nation is all industries having an integrated platform that drives their capital works. But it’s not just about doing the work, it’s also about planning for the work – and up until now, there hasn’t been that visibility,” he said.
“If utilities and road authorities don’t have visibility of other stakeholders’ proposed works when they plan and design new infrastructure, they could face challenges in implementing their designs, which may force them to rethink their designs. By that stage, they will have committed a lot of resources that might be wasted depending on the amount of rework required.”
Mr Issa said he’d love to see some of the country’s biggest builds delivered with a collaborative approach between all stakeholders concerned.
“Queensland will be hosting the 2032 Olympic games, which require a lot of new infrastructure. Using a collaborative framework to deliver this infrastructure would make commercial sense and also deliver on our national sustainability and waste reduction targets. SOCC can play a critical facilitating role in this space.”
While street works are critical to SOCC’s vision, it is also focusing on standards and best practices.
“[For example] we’re seeing a lot of electric vehicle (EV) charging stations being built on footpaths and car parks, but there isn’t a nationally accepted standard for locating them,” Mr Issa said.
“It is important to ensure that surface enclosures do not create maintenance nightmares for other utilities due to being incorrectly located. SOCC is now developing guidelines for the location of EV charging stations as a part of the review of its best practice guide to codes and practices for streets opening. The aim is to place chargers away from existing or dedicated spaces for utilities.
“We’re also developing a best practice road restoration standard for local roads. It is not only important to ensure that a disturbed road surface is restored to an acceptable standard, but also that the restoration of sub-surface layers is undertaken to an acceptable industry standard. This is important to reduce the risk of failure of utility services and minimise the community cost of maintaining essential assets.”
For those looking to be a part of SOCC, Mr Issa said the best way to get involved is to contact him directly.
“We will be progressively setting up chapter committees to represent all states in Australia. We envisage the process will involve an initial workshop to explain governance structure and operational responsibilities, and be followed by the election of committee members – [we want] all key stakeholder groups to be represented,” he said.
“Those who want to put their hands up first, all they need to do is call or email me and I’ll get to the ball rolling for them – or I’ll update them on the timeframe and what’s happening in their state.”
For more information, visit streetsopening.com.au/contact
