Safe Assets: Develop a safe and cost-effective cleaning solution for gantry signs with minimal disruption to traffic

Gantry sign cleaning is a laborious and hazardous process. Washing needs to be conducted at late night or in the wee hours to minimise disruption to motorists due to lane / full road closure for gantry signs located on expressways, slip roads and other arterial roads. It takes a team of 5 up to 3 hours to clean a 2-lane gantry sign per night. For a 6-lane gantry sign, it can take up to 12 hours and multiple lane closures would be required as well. Each lane closure / road closure poses disruption to motorists.  Workers are also subjected to workplace hazards such as working at height.

The nature of this operation relies heavily on physical labour and the works may be subjected to delays especially as the manpower crunch continues to worsen during this COVID-19 pandemic. Each operation requires minimally 4 workers and 1 supervisor.

No previous attempted solutions. Current method is closure of lanes for workers to access the gantry signs to manually carry out the washing.

Strategic importance of the project:

• To reduce disruption to traffic for motorists
• To reduce Contractors’ reliance on manpower in carrying out the washing operations perhaps with the use of automation.

• To carry out the washing of gantry signs to acceptable standards
• Images provided for comparison on the cleanliness of the gantry signs

• Shortened duration for cleaning of gantry signs
• Reduce manpower reliance and achieving same/higher efficiency
• Safe for users to operate, outdoor, all weather, 365-days, 24/7
• Fail-safe mechanism in the event of malfunction, product should not fall off from gantries/ at height
• Typical minimum height of gantry signs ranges from 4.5m - 5.5m
• Manageable equipment weight that can be easily handled (Open to proposal on the weight by the solution provider)
• Easy maintenance of equipment
• Open to all solutions / combination of solutions (e.g. coating to the gantry, chemical solvents/cleaning agents, robotics etc)
• Gantry signs are typically aluminium-composite panels with reflective sheeting

Solutions not interested:

• Drone – lane/road closures are still required. Not permitted to fly near/above live traffic.
• Rail-and-Track machines– Likely to result in high modification costs to existing gantry signs

• Yearly functional maintenance is required for the 200+ gantry signs on roads all over Singapore. For solution providers to propose commercial model of solution.
• Open to review solution providers’ commercial plan

Expected Key Outcomes:                         

• At least 25% manpower saving in carrying out the washing operation
• At least 25% reduction in the duration for carrying out the washing operation

Solution to be ready by 2023. To explore deployment opportunities upon successful solution development.

12 months from project commencement

Development funding of up to 80%* of qualifying project cost, which includes pilot sites, user guidance and information related to the problem statement.

*Till end of March 2022