Infrastructure expansion with Stratus: A visit to Wetzikon

Contact persons

Loris Detti

Infrastructure Contract Manager
Zurich

+41 44 387 14 22

Prompted by the upcoming district heating expansion, the town of Wetzikon in the Zurich Oberland had the condition of Roads and the gas, Water and wastewater infrastructure recorded and evaluated in accordance with standards in the summer of 2023. "Stratus Infra", the infrastructure management software from Basler & Hofmann, was used for this. The data was used to draw up an up-to-date investment plan that effectively supports the city in coordinating the periodic maintenance measures with the large district heating project. This avoids unnecessary multiple interventions and saves costs. Basler & Hofmann was able to support the city of 26,000 inhabitants with the project.

Procedure

The city of Wetzikon has surveyed the condition of the road network in order to update the planning basis for the foreseeable interventions in the Infrastructure and to be able to estimate the expected investment requirements. The town has around 74 kilometers of roads, including almost 60 kilometers of municipal roads and 14 kilometers of private roads. The last surveys were carried out in 2009 and 2013. The condition survey and investment plan were drawn up with Stratus Infra.

Challenges

The trigger for the project and a major challenge was the new district heating network to be laid. The Wetzikon heating network, which is operated with waste heat from the Zürcher Oberland waste incineration plant (KEZO) and energy from treated wastewater from the Wetzikon WWTP, will in future supply up to 50 percent of buildings in Wetzikon with regional heat for heating and hot water. The district heating infrastructure has to be completely rebuilt. At a good 30 kilometers, around half of all public Roads are affected.

"The district heating expansion is a major municipal task that will keep us busy for many years and must always be well coordinated with the temporary maintenance measures. For the current condition assessment and investment planning, it was therefore important for us to work with an experienced service provider that has the tools and expertise. Basler & Hofmann and its Stratus software solution convinced us in this respect."

Dario Erismann, Head of the Civil Engineering Department of the City of Wetzikon

Results

Today, Wetzikon has an up-to-date and fully visualized database of its road network and the Water, Wastewater, Electricity and Gas service pipes. An investment plan with around 100 individual projects up to 2034 has been drawn up. This gives the city clarity about the maintenance and repair requirements for the next ten years. The information has been geo-referenced and integrated into the municipal geographic information system (GIS). This means that Wetzikon is ideally equipped to coordinate periodic measures with unscheduled interventions in the expansion of district heating.

Click herefor the detailed report on the Stratus website . The full case study can be downloaded there as a PDF.

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