Last week Matt Rumbelow (Education Manager) and Shane O’Rorke (Technical Services Manager) attended the 2023 LGA Road and Works Conference, held over two days at the coastal city of Port Lincoln, South Australia. More than 200 people from across South Australia and interstate attended presentations from 18 speaking, including Jon Whelan, Chief Executive, Department for Infrastructure and Transport for the Government of South Australia.

Civil Survey Solutions was one of 40 exhibitors to support this important gathering, providing information on the latest engineering design software for road and land development, including Civil 3d and Civil Site Design, as well as an outline of training courses tailored to council workflows and requirements. These events provide our team with a great opportunity not only to learn but also to connect and reconnect with other people within our industry. 

From speaking with the attendees, it became apparent that the biggest challenge facing the regional councils is attracting and maintaining engineering staff within their regions. Given the remote and rural nature of these councils, many applicants need to consider a holistic lifestyle change, which for many young and growing families isn’t a suitable option.

The key areas of interest that many attendees noted were the advanced visualisation capabilities within Civil Site Design for road and development projects. For many, this interest was fuelled by their constant need to look for ways to better manage community engagement and how best to communicate designs and proposals to the residents of their area. 

Our team noted that some really interesting technology was on display, including integrated GPS and sensors for council machinery, such as waste collection for monitoring the safety and performance of drivers as well as vehicle-mounted high-resolution cameras to capture road surface conditions and identify necessary repairs. 

The event was a great success and we look forward to attending in the future.