Page 231 - Water Loss Control

204 Cha pte r T h i r tee n

FIGURE 13.3 Typical outdoor meter pit installation. (Source: Neptune Technology Group.)

of weather and adversity carry a high potential for monotony-driven inattention,
fatigue, illness, and injury, conditions that frequently result in inaccurate or incomplete
meter readings and high staffing turnover.
In addition to access difficulties, many meter reading attempts suffer human error
of visual misreads of the meter register, or error in transcribing the meter reading to
handwritten paper records. Poor handwriting may result in the meter reading numbers
being transcribed incorrectly to the billing system. Additionally, less diligent meter
readers sometimes abandon all attempts at accessing difficult meters, instead fabricat-
ing meter readings and submitting them as actual reads. Occasionally, corrupt meter
readers may collude with dishonest customers and intentionally fabricate meter read-
ings to understate consumption and billings, and thereby defraud the water utility. All
forms of erroneous or fabricated consumption volumes create distorted consumption
records and apparent losses that usually cost the water utility a portion of the revenue
to which it is entitled.
Despite the above-mentioned difficulties, manual meter reading is still very com-
mon and generally effective in many water utilities, perhaps more often in smaller com-
munities with smaller meter populations, fewer logistical difficulties, and stable
demographics. But the improving capabilities of AMR systems continue to make cost-
effective business cases in a growing number of water utilities of all sizes.