The 15th of January marks National Pothole Day; a day focused on raising awareness of potholes, the reasons why they form, the risks, and the repair solutions available.
As part of their festive celebrations, Multevo recreated the famous ‘World’s Best Cup of Coffee’ scene from the movie Elf, putting a highways spin on it by visiting one of their teams on site. Now, as part of National Pothole Day, Multevo delve into what makes the Multevo method the ‘World’s Best Pothole Repair’.
The versatile, compact and road legal Multihog machine is used by over 40% of local authorities to deliver highways, grounds, cleansing and winter services. Multevo were established as exclusive UK distributor in 2010 providing sales, hire and servicing support with over 60 hire units within their extensive fleet. The vast majority of these, equipped with road planers and integrated dust suppression.
In 2017 Multevo began to support local authorities and tier 1 highways contractors to beat the backlog of pothole repairs by self-delivering this as a dedicated service. The SME contractor now works nationwide self-delivering a range of highway maintenance services including permanent pothole repairs and surfacing schemes as well as the associated traffic management and civils.
In 2023, Multevo self-delivered 270,000 square metres of permanent pothole, defect, and patch repairs. Over the last 3 years they have seen a 300% growth in their workforce, jumping from just 30 operatives in 2020 to now having 260 multi-skilled operatives working across the UK.
THE MULTEVO METHOD
The Multevo method of repair uses innovative equipment to precisely cut out the necessary underlying structural defect, reducing waste whilst creating a sound uniform base for permanent reinstatement. The Multihog is renowned for being a productive, efficient, and safe method of tackling potholes on the network. The repair process eliminates repeat repair visits, helping to reduce costs and carbon emissions associated with visiting the same defect several times.
Using the equipment, Multevo achieve an average of 150 square metres of repairs per team, per day including reinstatement. This has been achievable by tackling clusters of potholes in a single visit, and with the equipment being road legal, it can get ahead of the reinstatement team without requiring transportation vehicles.
Another key benefit is the safety aspects of using such equipment; the operation is fully controlled within the cab which eliminates Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome, whilst the machine features an integrated dust suppression system removes dust on site.
Josh Sweeney, Director of Marketing and Growth at Multevo comments:
“We’re very unique in that the business originated as the UK sole supplier of the innovative range of Multihog equipment back in 2010. This has made us an expert in our field, having the knowledge of using the equipment to its highest potential to deliver efficiencies for our partners.”
Many local authorities have seen substantial results when working with Multevo to repair their network. Shropshire Council has seen a 60% reduction in outstanding defects and have achieved a 90% fix-first-time rate. In other parts of the UK, Multevo worked collaboratively with Amey and National Highways on the Area 7 strategic network to deliver a ‘corrective’ patching scheme which resulted in 43% cost saving, an 88% reduction in waste, and 30.2 tonnes of carbon saved when comparing to conventional surfacing methods.
TURNKEY SOLUTIONS
Multevo have a range of added value ‘turnkey’ solutions embedded within their service delivery model. The Multevo model of service delivery puts collaboration at its core and empowers the contractor to take full ownership of all steps of a scheme.
This includes allocating a dedicated back-office support team to carry out pre-site surveys, optimise programme of works to save time, cost and carbon, design traffic management, and raise all permits. Multevo provide a dedicated competent workforce and contract management team throughout the duration of a scheme, as well as self-delivering all temporary traffic management. This then leads to an efficient service delivery with the right treatments identified, correct traffic management in place and consistent teams working on the network.
Multevo have never lost their multifaceted principles with multi-skilled teams and equipment flexible in providing added resilience in severe weather and flood situations. A key insight into this is Multevo’s partnership with Amey and Staffordshire County Council; Multevo have grown from solely delivering pothole repairs, to now delivering a range of essential services including traffic management, surfacing, winter support and civils using the same multi-skilled workforce.
Darren Corcoran, Principal Operations Manager at Amey comments:
“What we’ve found with Multevo as part of our supply chain, is they’re very adaptive in terms of providing us with what we may need at any given point in time, and that’s a real strength to have.”
National Pothole Day shines light on the need to think about the more long-term needs of the UK’s road network. Many local authorities are facing a shortage of labour, skills and resource; but working collaboratively with forward thinking SMEs such as Multevo, can result in positive long-lasting results… and less potholes.
