We aim to offer our customers high quality services. For us, this implies the need to both keep our infrastructures under strict control, in terms of reviewing, extending and maintaining efficient networks and systems and optimise our business processes so as to ensure that our customers and all the residents we serve are provided with continuous and timely assistance.
The drive towards digitalisation has significantly improved our customer care, which is increasingly based on operational excellence with a view to providing quality, timeliness and consistency in solving problems. The progress achieved can be seen in the trend of the toll-free calls and in the results of customer satisfaction surveys.
Acea8cento
Acea8cento assists the Group's main operating companies companies with the management of certain remote channels - telephone, fax, webform, mail, social networks - for mainly commercial use.
More specifically, in 2018, Acea8cento helped to:
In 2018, the total number of calls to the Acea toll-free numbers decreased by over 24 percentage points compared to the previous year and recorded a global level of service - based on the ratio between responses and total number of calls received - of 93% (+3% compared to 2017).
A general drop in the number of calls was recorded in all sectors, except for the electrical faults reported (Areti) which for the private network basically remained stable.
There has been a reduction in the number of calls to toll-free numbers for energy (commercial), water and public lighting services, mainly thanks to the technological innovations made to our processes and infrastructures and to service digitalisation.
For many years we have carried out regular surveys in collaboration with specialised institutes to measure customer and residents’ satisfaction with regard to the services provided for electricity, water and public lighting.
As in previous years, two six-monthly surveys were carried out in 2018, giving the results indicated below.
Global opinions on services provided
Water
We are responsible for the Integrated Water Service (SII - Servizio Idrico Integrato) for various Local Authority Water Boards (Ambito Territoriali Ottimali - ATOs) in the regions of Lazio (ATO2 and ATO5), Tuscany, Campania (ATO – Calore Irpino) and Umbria, based on an Agreement entered into with the Area Supervisory Body (EGA). The SII covers the entire drinking and waste water cycle, from collection of the natural resource at the springs to its return to the environment. The Group Companies operate in compliance with the procedures set forth in our QASE management systems, with a view to continually improving and providing widespread, top quality services and transparency in our interaction with stakeholders, whilst minimising our environmental and social impacts.
One of the principal activities we are carrying out on our networks concerns the technological modernisation of related infrastructures, and specifically:
Acea Ato 2’s smart metering project
"Smart metering" systems are those based on the remote reading and management of utility meters with consequent advantages in terms of efficiency and data security. After two years’ work, Acea Ato 2 developed and patented an innovative system for remote reading of the new meters. As the initial experiments launched in 2016 were so successful, at the end of 2018 we began to install new meters equipped with an impulse emitting device and a radio module that enables the consumption recorded by the meters to be read remotely and acquired by a special Data Management Centre.
This technology will allow us to already obtain benefits already starting from 2019, including:
With the support of Acea Elabori, we take great care to check the water quality not only of springs and wells, but also of the storage tanks and distribution network. Control frequency is established according to the volumes, the population served, the condition of the network and infrastructures and specific characteristics of the local sources.
The integrated water service includes the collection and purification of the waste water in order to return it to the natural environment. We analyse water quality both on entry into and exit from the treatment plants in order to constantly monitor the impact of the business on the receiving water bodies. Thanks to the use of state-of-the-art technology, the Acea Ato 2 Environmental Operation Room continually monitors hydrometric and pluviometric information in the Rome area and provides data on water quality of the urban stretches of the Tiber and Aniene rivers.
It is essential to monitor the condition of the networks and to promptly intervene in the event of a fault: we do not merely identify and repair any damage appearing in the network, we also extend our analyses and interventions to a wider stretch of the network in order to be able to plan and, if necessary, carry out any restoration work.
Public lighting
Artistic LED technology lighting of Rome’s historic fountains, the Colosseum Archeological Park, of Santa Severa Castle and the Roman Theatre in Benevento
Under the Service Agreement drawn up with the Municipality of Rome, through the company Areti manage the Capital’s public, functional and artistic-monumental lighting, serving a network of over 199,700 lighting points, in respect of which we perform design, construction, operation, maintenance and restructuring activities, always in compliance with certified QASE Management Systems and working in sinergy with the Public Administration and Supervisory Body.
The main indicator of the public lighting service is the time taken to repair faults. Times are calculated from the moment of a report being made, either by the control systems in operation along the network or directly by citizens or the Municipality of Rome via special channels, such as call centres, website, fax or letter. In 2018, 81% of the faults reported were resolved within the year.
The LED plan for Rome
The purpose of the LED Plan, launched in 2016, is to reduce energy consumption associated with public lighting quality and maintain and improve lighting by replacing the light fixtures with LED lights.
By the end of 2018, a total of over 170,000 light fixtures were installed and, despite the increase in lighting points, between 2016 and 2018, total energy consumption for public lighting was halved and a rise was recorded in the average output of the lamps installed.
Energy
We also use Areti to manage, modernise and expand the electricity distribution infrastructures in Rome and Formello, a network of over 1.6 million delivery points.
In addition to the objectives of efficiency, improved service quality and reduction of environmental impacts, the most interesting interventions carried out on the infrastructures concern the application of innovative technologies, especially from a smart city distributed generation perspective, electric mobility, storage systems, connectivity and resilience. This also includes our commitment to extend the fibre optic communication network to "ultra-broadband" in Rome.
As regards digital meters and smart metering systems, in 2018 Areti continued its technical investigations into the development and consolidation of new standards and conducted on-site experiments.
We also continued to experiment multifunctional technologies and architectures for smart metering, applicable to several sectors, such as, for example, smart water metering using GPRS technology and NB-IoT for Acea Ato 2. We installed remotely monitored digital meters on active low voltage utilities: 1,613,050 meters on low voltage utilities, corresponding to 99.68% of the total LV meters.
