Case Study - Commercial Water Metering

At Yarra Trams’ New Preston Depot, automated wash facilities keep Melbourne’s E-class tram fleet clean around the clock. The facility runs continuously and so does its water use.

Water consumption at the depot was higher than expected, but without granular, time-stamped monitoring data, there was no way to identify where the inefficiency was coming from or when it was occurring. The problem was invisible.

The pressure to find answers was real. Melbourne’s water storages had fallen below 68% due to prolonged dry conditions, and large commercial users, including essential services like public transport, had a clear role to play in reducing demand.

As part of the Victorian Government’s WaterSmart program, delivered by water corporations to support high-water users in essential industries, Yarra Valley Water installed a Kallipr Captis S1 data logger at the New Preston Depot.

The logger, installed by the team at New Plumbing Solutions, captured continuous, time-stamped consumption data across the facility, providing a precise, hour-by-hour picture of how water moved through the depot. Almost immediately, the data surfaced an anomaly: unusually high water use between 4 and 5am, a window when the facility was running on automation with no one watching.

The source was traced to the tram wash backflush system, the automated cycle that keeps the wash clean between uses. It was running longer than necessary, and it had gone undetected because there was simply no way to see it without the data.

The fix required no infrastructure changes and no impact on cleaning performance. The backflush cycle was reduced to 15 minutes, a single operational adjustment, made possible entirely by what the monitoring revealed.

The results were immediate.

Yarra Trams cut water use at the depot by almost 70%, saving 18,200 litres per day and 6.6 million litres per year. Enough to fill 20 E-class trams, saved annually from one process change.

“The data logger at New Preston helped us reduce water used by our tram wash by almost 70 per cent – helping us deliver on our commitment to sustainability and reduce our environmental impact.”

— Renée Karlson, Environment Manager, Yarra Trams

For Yarra Valley Water, the result reflects exactly what the WaterSmart program is designed to achieve. As Lisa Anelli, General Manager Retail Services, noted: programs like WaterSmart give businesses a clear picture of how water is being used and where efficiencies can be found, saving money while helping protect supplies under pressure.