Water dispensing station for Logan City Council

Freshwater filling stations with multiple payment options

Project Snapshot

When the infrastructure that is critical to supplying residents with vital water for everyday living was due to be retired, Logan City Council needed a solution that would fill its existing need, while streamlining its service delivery. 

The digital water filling station supplied by Cadia fit the requirement and ensured that local residents would have easy access to freshwater when the old system was decommissioned. This system also has the benefit of reducing water theft, providing a secure metered supply of water that is available 24/7. 

The Challenges

Logan contains a large rural area and not all of the city’s residents are connected to reticulated (or ‘town’) water supplies, meaning that a large number of residents are dependent on tanker water. Traditionally this has come from either professional delivery drivers, or self-driven.

Under the old scheme, residents relied on prepaid tags at the point of delivery to pay for their water. While the system was simple, credit top-ups could only be done during Council customer service hours, including refunds and account closures. The old system no longer had backend IT support, and it was slated for retirement by its owner.

This left Logan City Council with a gap in its service delivery capability.

Our Solution

“After scoping a replacement, market research began with the following criteria: a small-footprint unit that utilised credit cards, rather than a tag or proprietary card system, which would cater for small and large volume customers,” says Michael Kenyon, Program Leader Water Business and Customer Management at Logan City Council. 

The water dispensing unit supplied by Cadia Group suited the spec and offered the following features:

• A stainless-steel, vandal-proof powder-coated box (in council colours) that is easily relocatable and has a relatively small footprint. This means it can be mounted on a concrete pad with bollards around it to prevent damage.
• All plumbing is contained within the box, which includes the necessary back-flow requirements and outlets to cater for small and large customers (for instance 20mm and 50mm outlets).
• A user interface that consists of a digital display, vandal-proof button, payment facility that accepts debit Visa and MasterCard, PayWave and PayPass facilities.
• Back-up facilities to mitigate power outages.
• The ability to be operated via solar power with a battery backup where mains power is not available (this was important, as the Council was in the process of identifying new sites to meet the demands of customers).
• Transaction management software (via the web) to view transactions and to allow refunds of disputed/failed transactions.

“The first unit was installed in August 2015 and has been performing smoothly ever since,” says Michael. 

“The supplier was placed under very tight time pressures and fulfilled the brief - including design and development - admirably. The end product has been a significant

advancement on the preceding implementation and is a credit to the supplier.”

Find out more about water dispensing stations

Designed and Manufactured in Australia, each water dispensing station supplied by Cadia Group is fully enclosed to minimise the ingress of insect infestation and the exchange of air. This eliminates water vapour and dust that can settle over the circuit boards and cause corrosion. 

This in turn provides a much longer product service life with minimal or no ongoing maintenance costs.

To find out more about our range contact the team at Cadia Group.