Street Asset Maintenance: Lights, Hydrants and Signs

Municipal crews look after thousands of small things: lamp posts, hydrants, bollards, signs, bins and drain covers. Faults are reported by passers-by in words, and the crew has to match the words to one object among many that look the same. A UPCS code makes the report precise, because it takes anyone who opens it to the exact spot that was picked, a 3 m x 3 m square.

Why street assets are hard to report

"The light is out on the road behind the school" may cover forty lamps. Roads can have changed names, and a record that says "Lamp 114" is useless on site if the paint has worn off. Drain covers and hydrants are even harder: they sit flush with the surface and can be buried under dust or asphalt repairs.

A code per asset

Record a UPCS code for each asset during a survey walk, and keep it in your register beside the asset type, condition and install date. The next report, work order or inspection simply cites the code. The crew enters it in the search box, or opens upcs.io/<code>, and the map opens exactly on the asset, with Get Directions for the route.

For citizen reports, a resident can pick the spot in an embedded map, so the ticket arrives with a code and coordinates, not a paragraph of description.

Mechanisms you can use

• Share link or code: send it with the work order message.
• Embedded map: your server creates a short-lived session with your partner key and allowed origin; the page calls UPCS.mount and receives the selected code in onSelect.
• REST API: POST /v1/upcs/generate to create a code for each surveyed asset; GET /v1/upcs/lookup/{code} to read the location. See the documentation for the exact request shapes.

Tips

1. Zoom in until the grid is visible and pick the base of the post or the cover itself.
2. For clusters (for example a row of bollards), decide whether to record each or only the group, and stay consistent.
3. Keep your own asset ID next to the code; the code gives the place, your ID gives the asset type and history.
4. When an asset is replaced in the same spot, the code remains the same, which keeps the history connected.

This is a location layer for your register, not a replacement for GIS or work-order software. Related pages: government and public services and waste collection.