· The Evolution of Water Metering
· Water metering is a relatively new field. The modern water meter was invented in the mid-19th century and has only seen widespread use for a little over 100 years. Water metering technology has improved significantly since then, and continues to do so. Let’s take a look at the evolution of water metering, and the benefits each improvement in technology has realized.
· Manual Water Meter Reading
· If you are of a certain age you probably remember the meter man walking through your neighborhood once every two or three months. He would walk up to each house and read the water meter, jotting down the numbers on a notepad. This information would then have to be compiled and analyzed back at the municipal offices.
· While the adoption of computer technology vastly improved the efficiency of this process, the drawbacks to this method are obvious: it is costly and time-consuming, with a very real margin of human error.
· Walk-By Water Metering
· The first big technological improvement to manual reading came with the invention of a hand-held device which allowed the meter reader to simply touch the device to the meter to download the information, rather than have to open and read each meter individually. This not only saved significant time and labor costs, it also improved the accuracy of readings.
· AMR and Drive-By Metering
· With the invention of AMR (Advanced Meter Reading) technology, meter readers no longer had to walk down the street. Information from each meter is wirelessly transmitted every few seconds, and is accessible for a short distance, enabling the meter reader to simply drive by and collect the data with a transceiver in the vehicle. The information is then downloaded into CIS software and from there to billing software, which generates the invoices.
· At this point in time, AMR is still the most-sold water metering technology on the market. However, it does have some significant drawbacks. Because the data transmission from an AMR unit is short-range, it still requires vehicle deployment. This adds to the cost and environmental impact of metering and limits the frequency with which it is practical to take readings. Also, it is very common to miss a few readings per route. At the end of the day, it is then necessary for the meter reader to go back and manually collect information from those meters that did not report.
· Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI)
· The newest water metering technology eliminates the physical visit to the metered neighborhoods. With the long range data transmission capability of AMI technology, data can now be collected directly and automatically over a distance of ½ to 5 miles away. This has revolutionary implications:
· AMI enables far more frequent meter readings, such as hourly or even at 15 minute intervals. This gives a much more granular picture of water consumption and can help a water utility rapidly locate and address leaks that in the past would have gone unnoticed for weeks or months.
· AMI allows for improved customer communication to address water usage issues. Its smart software can be programmed to automatically flag anomalous usage, and contact the customer through phone, email, or text.
