Noise from construction activity on major infrastructure projects can have a significant impact on surrounding communities and decrease overall quality of life. In addition, noise from construction can lead to an increase in traffic, dust, and air pollution, which can also have a negative effect on the local environment. SLR is a global leader in environmental and advisory solutions and its technical specialists provide guidance on acoustics, noise and vibration for a wide scope of projects ranging from city-scale environments to detailed building or infrastructure elements. SLR has several construction clients operating in a challenging and dynamic environment in Australia and New Zealand. Clients need to quickly understand the acoustic impact on nearby properties of construction equipment operated at different times and locations. To better serve these clients, 1Spatial Australia worked with SLR to create an automated, mobile noise assessment service using Safe Software’s FME Server. The end-to-end service integrates with a mobile phone app for construction managers to submit the activity type and location of equipment, proposed work hours, and receive a detailed report describing the noise impact on nearby properties. This presentation will provide more detail on the automated mobile noise assessment service, including the challenges overcome and key benefits delivered

1. Creating an Automated Mobile Noise
Assessment Service with FME

2. Presenter
The
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Christian
Fellinger
National Sales Manager
1Spatial Australia

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Agenda for Today’s Presentation
1. Introduction
2. Challenges & Requirements
3. Solution
4. Workflow
5. Key Benefits
6. Tips & Tricks

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Introduction

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Who is SLR Consulting?
● SLR is a leader in environmental solutions and provide
guidance on acoustics, noise and vibration for large
infrastructure projects in Australia and New Zealand
● Clients need to quickly understand the acoustic impact on
nearby properties of construction equipment (operated at
different times and locations)
● To better serve these clients, 1Spatial Australia worked
with SLR to create an automated, mobile noise
assessment service using FME Server (now FME Flow)

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Challenges
● Clients need an engineer’s report detailing the
acoustic impact to nearby properties before work
can start
● SLR receives requests to produce detailed noise
assessment reports 24 / 7
● Previous process to produce reports was slow and
labor intensive

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Solution Requirements
● Utilise existing systems without custom
development/coding
● Integrate with data from field inspection tool
● Process complex calculations on noise assessment
● Provide instant reports without manual intervention
● Create custom pdf reports

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“We needed an automated system with
prepopulated modelled data that was readily
accessible and could do the accumulated noise
assessments. We also wanted to move away from
a spreadsheet macro environment that needed
considerable human manipulation to produce the
reports.”
Peter McGown
Technical Discipline Manager (GIS & Information Systems), SLR

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What did we Build?

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Solution
• Lengthy Manual process
• Easy to use, efficient
and automated process
• Data integration and Automation
with AGOL and Survey123

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Workflow
“One of the benefits of 1Spatial’s solution is that the
parameters and inputs can be changed to meet state
government requirements and other noise guidelines, as
well as being customised for individual projects.”
Peter McGown
Technical Discipline Manager (GIS & Information Services) , SLR

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Survey 123 Input Form
● The user starts with recording data in the
field and will:
● Submit the assessment details
● Draw a polygon on the area of works
● Record the type of equipment to be used and
quantity

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FME Processing
● User Authorization:
● Submitted assessment details are checked
against an authorized user list in an AGOL
table. The data is only processed if an
authorized user has made a submission
● Spatial Filter:
● The submitted work area polygon is checked
against the project area and only processed if it
overlaps
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FME Processing
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● FME performs the following operations:
● Pulls necessary data from 12 different spatial
and non-spatial tables in AGOL
● Performs noise assessment calculations for
each of the surrounding buildings based on pre
generated acoustic models
● Categorises surrounding buildings based on
the excess noise level from the activity
● Creates PDF report and emails to required
personnel

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Conclusion

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Key Benefits
● Tailored noise assessment reports in minutes rather than hours
● Reports requested via mobile or desktop, on site, at any time
without contacting consultant
● Reduces risk by fully capturing the intellectual property of
acoustic engineers on a project
● Less workplace stress with no need to manually produce reports
outside working hours
● Improves regulatory compliance with an audit trail of noise reports

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“FME also give us a powerful tool to provide extra
functionality for the entire SLR APAC team of 600
people. It is making our processes quicker and more
flexible. With FME, they are not locked in stone.”
Peter McGown
Technical Discipline Manager (GIS & Information Systems), SLR
“The project was a great success due to the
collaboration we had with the SLR team, and we
continue to work with SLR to ensure the success of
the application.”
Ashish Manandhar
Senior Consultant, 1Spatial Australia

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Tips & Tricks 1
● Read only necessary data
● Utilise Where clause or
Spatial filters in Readers to
selectively read required
data.

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Tips & Tricks 2
● Create pretty PDFs
● Multiple ways of creating
PDF reports in FME
● Generate template HTML
document with required
formatting and populate
with required values
● Convert HTML to PDF
using wkhtmltopdf

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Tips & Tricks 3
● Use Parent and Child workspaces for automation
● Lightweight Parent workspace can be set to run every few
minutes
● It will check for any new incoming data
● Trigger child workspace with required parameters which
performs bulk of processing

22. ThankYou!
christian.fellinger@1spatial.com