23 September 2003 00:00 East Midlands Electricity gets to the point

East Midlands Electricity (EME) is continuing to improve its service to customers by taking delivery of two new state-of-the-art cable fault locator vans.

The equipment can pinpoint cable faults to within metres and so help speed up the length of time it takes engineers to carry out repairs and restore power supplies to customers.

The two 4x4 Mercedes Sprinter vans, which have been custom built to accommodate the new equipment for use on EME’s network of underground cables, replace existing equipment which has reached the end of its working life.

Gary Henson, EME Repairs Project Manager, said: “Before we took delivery of the vehicles, cable fault locations could take up a significant part of the overall repair time.

“The new Vehicles are equipped with the most up-to-date computer-based equipment available which can be used on all types of cable on our network.

“Engineers now have access to several fault location ‘tools’ all contained within one specialist vehicle”.

“We believe that this technology will not only make life easier for our staff, but will also help us reduce the overall time it takes to repair cable faults.”

EME Engineers have been trained to use the vehicles across the company in Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Derbyshire, Coventry and Warwickshire and Leicestershire