RodRadar partners with Lynch to enter U.K. rental market

RodRadar has entered the U.K. market by forming a new partnership with Lynch, a British-based heavy equipment rental business. RodRadar's patented Live Dig Radar is an AI-powered, real-time system embedded in excavation equipment; it can automatically detect and alert operators to underground utilities while digging.

​Cutting down on costly utility strikes 

An estimated 60,000 underground utility strikes cost the U.K. economy approximately £2.4 billion annually. Beyond direct repair bills, the actual cost of a strike is  29  times higher, with project delays, property damage, traffic disruption, safety, and environmental incidents included. RodRadar's on-bucket Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) provides operators with an instant alert for avoiding buried infrastructure, eliminating guesswork and reliance on outdated, missing, or inaccurate data, boosting safety and productivity. In a recent utilities rehabilitation project at a U.S. Naval Base, the LDR helped the contractor avoid 200 mismarked and unknown utilities, saving over 1,000 hours of downtime and more than $1.5 million.

As Britain's underground infrastructure becomes ever more congested, proactive risk elimination is overtaking reactive damage control. With the government's National Underground Asset Register (NUAR) nearing full roll-out and other leading industry stakeholders such as Line Search Before You Dig (LSBUD) and Utility Strike Avoidance Group (USAG), tools that make subsurface data actionable at the point of excavation are expected to become a standard. The RodRadar U.K. alliance provides contractors with a practical route to protect crews, budgets, and program schedules from day one.

"RodRadar is driven to give operators instant, actionable visibility beneath the surface during excavation," said Yuval Barnea, vice president of sales and marketing at RodRadar. "By partnering with a national rental powerhouse like Lynch in a predominantly rental-driven market, any customer from Cornwall to the Highlands of Scotland will have access to our Live Dig Radar systems and ‘stop digging blind', making ‘strike-free sites' an everyday reality."

​"Lynch's strong focus on safety, digital innovation, and productivity aligns with RodRadar's breakthrough and easy-to-use technology. Our customers have identified that utility strikes are a significant concern, and we believe that Live Dig Radar is the answer," said Chris Gill, director at Lynch. "We are confident that contractors will recognize the LDR as an essential tool with immediate ROI. We are excited about the vast opportunity and are committed to ensuring that our products are fully accessible and successful for our customers nationwide, as the sole supplier to the rental market."