City of Fort Worth Storm Drain Rehabilitation Project

The Fort Worth Storm Drain Rehabilitation Program (SDRP) project won an American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) National Recognition Award, as well as an ACEC Gold, state level award.

The goal of the program was to manage storm drain infrastructure through a strategic data-driven approach. Halff began with the City’s available information to correct known problems in the storm drain system. Halff then worked closely with City stakeholders to establish a program framework, guiding storm drain corrective actions into the future.

Custom GIS and artificial intelligence (AI) tools were used by Halff for risk-based prioritization of assets and mapsheds, standardized condition scoring and predictive modeling of condition and failure. The program tools and techniques were integrated with a web-based program tracking database, enhancing geospatial data access and collaboration between Halff and City staff.

Halff built on the City’s traditional risk-based prioritization, or the business risk exposure (BRE), to help take the Fort Worth SDRP to the next level with advanced analytics. A Smart LOF analysis enhanced the current BRE by refining the Likelihood of Failure (LOF) component of risk. To align the LOF composite scores with the field-verified condition assessment scores, the team performed a detailed analysis of pipe condition data. This analysis involved condition assessment data review, feature engineering, feature correlation, new feature generation and machine learning modeling. The Halff Smart LOF model learned and forecasted historical CCTV scoring with 82 percent accuracy. The model is now able to forecast which uninspected pipes and mapsheds have the highest LOF.

Won Awards:
2022 — National Recognition Award; American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC)
2021 — Engineering Excellence Gold Award – Studies, Research and Consulting Engineering Services; American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC)