Wallingford Software’s InfoWorks gains new clients in Belgrade, Serbia and Mostar, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Wallingford Software’s InfoWorks solutions are building on existing successes in the Balkan markets with three new contracts. EHTING, a new client, purchased InfoWorks CS, WS, and RS for use in Serbia’s capital city, Belgrade, in April 2005. The Agency for Building Land and Construction of Belgrade also purchased InfoWorks CS last April to model Belgrade’s sewers, Mostar Waterworks of Bosnia-Herzegovina acquired InfoWorks WS.
The Agency for Building Land and Construction of Belgrade chose the water resource modeling specialist EHTING to select the best model for the city’s wastewater collection system. “EHTING has 15 years of experience in designing and modeling water resources systems including water supply, sanitary networks and melioration [wetland drainage] systems. It was because of this experience that the Agency for Building Land and Construction of Belgrade entrusted EHTING with the selection of the hydraulic modeling software to be used for the Belgrade sewer system,” said Momilo Bikicki, the managing director of EHTING.
In collaboration with Ing. Branislav Brabi, assistant professor at the Civil Engineering School of the Belgrade University, EHTING selected InfoWorks after an extensive evaluation of commercially available software packages based on the following criteria:
• Capabilities of the hydraulic solver, combined with its surface and flooding modeling capacity;
• Proven ability to model large networks (100,000+ manholes);
• Ease of use combined with powerful editing and data analysis tools;
• GIS, CAD, and MS Office integration; and
• Reporting capabilities.
The use of InfoWorks in Belgrade harks back to the original development of WesNet by a local team. One of the developers, Rajko Avor, later moved to Wessex Water where WesNet became a commercial success. Wallingford Software later bought the calculation engine and integrated it into the InfoWorks solution. Rajko Avor went on to work with Wallingford Software.
The purchase makes the company the second large user of InfoWorks CS in Belgrade. EHTING personnel have recently been undergoing training on the solution.
”After our initial experiences using the InfoWorks platform we decided to convert the existing WESNET and EPANET models to InfoWorks WS,” said Boris DÏodanovic, EHTING Senior Engineer and the lead on the Belgrade sewer project.
EHTING has considerable experience in environmental and hydraulic engineering and consultancy, undertaking prestigious projects such as the detailed design of water supply and sewerage installations for Moscow’s Domodedovo airport and the rehabilitation of the urban water supplies and sanitation in Novi Sad, Ni‰ and Belgrade.
The company has also been involved in educating the management and employees of water works across Serbia, to improve water measurement and reduce losses.
The name Mostar means “old bridge,” a reference to the famous 400-year old “Stari Most” stone arch on the river Neretva, which was destroyed during the 1993 regional war but has since been reconstructed. Today Mostar has a population of 60,000.
The purchase of InfoWorks WS is one of the first collaborative actions that the East and West Mostar Waterworks organizations have undertaken. Prior to the war, the Mostar Water Works was one of the most technically advanced in the region, developing a computer system based on WesNet back in the 1980s.
During the war the computer model was destroyed, along with much of the city whose supply it had modeled. After the war ended and reconstruction began, Bristol Water, one of the UK’s water-only companies, was brought in to help rebuild the system. The comprehensive computer model of Mostar water supply system, developed by Bristol Water, was transferred to Mostar Waterworks where it will continue development.
