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labor-intensive process that involved inventorying all the roads; grading them with an A, B, C, D or F; rating them; and numbering them in a spread- sheet that includes details about costs and problems. The result was a plan for fixes over a decade at a cost of about $1 million per year.
Then Turley found out about Road- Botics, a web-based app that collects roadway data through the camera on any smartphone and delivers analysis of that data via the cloud.
“We took immediate interest in it because it’s so labor-intensive to do it manually,” Turley said. “You’ve got two guys out there writing information on sheets, coming back and putting it into
a database. It takes a long time. You can collect the data faster” with the app.
AUTOMATED DATA COLLECTION
To use RoadBotics, users mount their smartphones against the vehicle’s windshield with the camera facing out. The phone then collects infor- mation on cracks, potholes and other problems as the driver goes about business as usual.
What’s more, the app identifies problems not only on the surface, but also on the edge of the road, including signs.
“If you can see it as a driver, we can see it, too,” RoadBotics CEO Mark De- Santis said. “Then all that data is up- loaded to the cloud, to our platform, and then our platform commences the analysis with everything that vehicle has seen along the roadway.”
The data is stored locally on the device until the app senses a friendly Wi-Fi connection. Then the platform pulls all the data out of the phone and into the cloud for analysis, where ma- chine and deep learning find anomalies and provide a qualitative assessment, DeSantis said.
At the end of a day of data collection, public works officials will see a map with green, yellow and red markings. They can click on those to see what’s causing the rating. The information in- cludes dates and time stamps, plus an image of the problem that needs to be addressed.
The RoadBotics data can also be ex- ported to common GIS mapping for- mats so that information can be ported and integrated into existing roadway inventory management systems.
The app grew out of the work of Christoph Mertz, a roboticist at Carn- egie Mellon University who wanted to help cities manage transportation re- sources. RoadBotics became a company last December, and DeSantis said addi- tional capabilities are in the works.
For instance, the federal government
requires state and local agencies to regularly evaluate how reflective their signage is. To do that, most government agencies ask workers to drive around and look at signs.
“That’s not necessarily practical,” DeSantis said. “You need some way to gather that data in an automated way and analyze it in an automated way, and that’s one of the things that we’re working on as well.”
The company also wants to help customers inventory their infrastruc- ture, such as the locations of manhole covers, drainage ditches and street lights, he added.
A COST-EFFECTIVE SOLUTION
Turley has been using RoadBotics for more than a year and said some kinks still need to be worked out. For in- stance, he’s had false calls in the data because of shadows.
“It’s not going to be perfect data,” Turley said. “If you’re doing yearly road lists, you’ve still got to go out and field-check some of these roads. But you have a data source or data management tool to help steer you in the right direction.”
Overall, the app can be a huge time- saver at a minimal cost, Turley said. RoadBotics charges per mile, depend- ing on the size of the contract, the number of lane miles and frequency of use. For instance, some customers want to do surveys twice a year while others aim for monthly.
On average, the price is about $50 per mile.
For North Huntingdon, spending a few thousand dollars to monitor road conditions when the township will spend $1.4 million this year on road engineering is more than reasonable, Turley said.
“This is going to be helpful for us pulling up photographs for clarity purposes, public meetings, projects or discussions,” he said. “I think there’s a good need for this.” •
MARC BRUXELLE/BBERNARD/SHUTTERSTOCK
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