Is Your Infrastructure Data Locked in Video?

When a city experiences several pipe failures within the same part of its system, it may seem obvious that the data should hold the answer.

Are the failures isolated incidents, or are they signs of a larger problem? Are the pipes connected by age, material, condition, or location? Are nearby assets showing the same warning signs?

The public works director turns to the team, expecting answers.

The city has years of inspection footage, maintenance records, and firsthand knowledge of the system. The challenge is not that the information does not exist. The challenge is that it is difficult to see together.

Some of the data lives in work orders. Some is contained in inspection reports. Some of it left with the employee who retired last week. Much of it remains inside CCTV footage that was collected, delivered, and stored on a shelf but never transformed into usable data.

As the city searches for answers across the bits and pieces logged in its systems, the video sitting on the shelf may hold the clearest picture of what is happening underground.

The problem is that no one has the time to review hours of footage, or the specialized knowledge required to extract and structure the information inside it.

So, the team is left trying to piece together the answers:

Which pipes show similar conditions? Are defects concentrated within a particular area? Are repeated failures part of a larger pattern? Which assets should be evaluated next?

The city does not necessarily need another inspection to begin answering those questions.

It may simply need to unlock the information it has already paid to collect.

Is Your Data Locked in Video?

Across the country, cities and utilities have accumulated thousands of hours of CCTV footage documenting the condition of sewer and stormwater infrastructure.

The inspections have already been completed. Crews have been sent into the field. Cameras have traveled through the pipes. The footage has been collected, delivered, and paid for.

And then, in many cases, it is stored.

Some of it sits on a server or shared drive. Some is saved on an external hard drive. In some cases, physical tapes or other media are still on a shelf.

The video exists, but the data inside it has never been fully extracted.

That means cities may be sitting on years of valuable infrastructure intelligence without being able to use it.

CCTV video is more than documentation that an inspection occurred, or a box checked in a work order.

Inside each recording are observations about the condition of the system and signs of deterioration that may help explain why failures are happening and where problems could emerge next:

• Cracks

• Roots

• Deposits

• Infiltration

• Deformation

• Obstructions

• Joint defects

But videos alone do not make those answers easy to find.

Someone still must review the footage, identify what is happening, code the defects, connect the findings to the correct asset, and organize the information in a way the rest of the team can use.

Until that happens, the answers remain locked inside footage with dormant potential.

From Raw Footage to Usable Data

Historically, extracting data from CCTV footage has required trained professionals to review inspections manually, one video at a time.

For a city with hundreds or thousands of inspections, that process can take weeks or months.

Meanwhile, the backlog is growing.

New footage is added faster than teams can review it. Inspection results become disconnected from maintenance and planning workflows. Staff may know the information exists, but they cannot access it quickly enough to support the decision in front of them.

This is where advances in computer vision are changing what is possible.

Computer vision can interpret visual information contained within video. In sewer inspection, it can be used to review footage, identify potential defects, and convert what appears on screen into structured condition data.

Instead of requiring someone to manually work through every hour of footage from beginning to end, large volumes of video can now be processed much faster.

Work that once took weeks or months can be completed within hours or days, depending on the volume and condition of the footage.

This does not simply speed up video review.

It turns stored footage into information a city can begin to act on.

The Data Becomes More Valuable When It Is Mapped

Extracting the data is only the first step.

A coded inspection can tell a city what was found inside a pipe. A spreadsheet can organize defects by asset. A report can summarize the condition of a particular inspection.

But none of those views necessarily show the full pattern.

The real value becomes clearer when the data is placed on a map.

When inspection findings are connected to location, teams can begin to see how individual conditions relate to the broader system.

They can see whether defects are concentrated within one neighborhood or corridor. They can compare failures with pipe age, material, previous repairs, service calls, road projects, or other known conditions.

They can begin to ask better questions:

• Are the same types of defects appearing in nearby assets?

• Are repeated failures connected to a particular installation period or material?

• Is one problem isolated, or is it part of a larger pattern?

• Which areas should be reviewed, maintained, rehabilitated, or replaced first?

Without a map, those connections may remain scattered across separate files and systems.

With a map, the information starts to tell a story.

Turning CCTV Footage into Spatial Intelligence

PipeAid codes CCTV sewer footage and transforms the findings into structured spatial data.

The process starts with video that a city may already have.

The footage is reviewed using proprietary computer vision technology; defects are coded, and NASSCO-certified technicians perform quality assurance. The results are then prepared for use within the city’s existing systems.

The output can be quickly implemented in platforms such as ArcGIS, Cityworks, or OpenGov.

This means the city does not have to leave valuable inspection findings trapped inside video files or isolated reports.

The information can become part of the same environment teams already use to manage assets, coordinate work, plan capital projects, and communicate priorities.

Unlock the Information You Already Own

To make strategic decisions, cities do not always need to begin by collecting more data.

Sometimes, the information they need has already been collected. It is simply sitting on a shelf, waiting to be explored.

The answers may be inside CCTV footage that was paid for, delivered, and stored but never fully analyzed or connected to the rest of the system.

That video is not just an old inspection.

It is an asset with dormant potential.

By extracting the information from raw footage and placing it on a map, cities can turn years of stored video into usable infrastructure intelligence.

So, when the next failure happens and leaders ask why, where else, and what should happen next, the team is not left wishing it could see the data.

It has already mapped the answers.