Workers manually do the checking, by entering into manholes. They find it difficult to carry anything that they can record their observations on. They have to come outside and fill up forms, which are then passed on to repair crews.There is no way that a supervisor can be sure that a worker has done his job.

The experience of municipal organizations that have implemented this system has been positive. To summarize the RFID system implementation has resulted in the sewer inspection system becoming very efficient. There are also now less chances of mis-reporting a faulty pipe (by way of recording the wrong number). It also frees the workers from juggling sheafs of papers while doing their work, leading to more time available for the “real work” of cleaning the sewer rather than spending time on creating records.

RFID active tags can be embedded inside the sewer pipes at particular locations. The sewer workers enter the pipes and do their inspection. Their observations are recorded by them by means of a small handheld RFID reader (which also has writing capability).The observations can be formatted in simple Yes/No forms.

This system is likely to be adopted by many other city & local government authorities as an effective way to monitor their sewer systems.