The Future of Road Asset Management

Establishing a New Standard for Proactive Road Maintenance

by Fabio Pagura*

Intro & Key Challenges

Following the Covid-19 pandemic, Italy is set to launch a major recovery campaign with infrastructure maintenance expected to play a key role. Some estimates are that this maintenance budget may reach €50 billion[1].  Given that over 80% of passengers and freight travel by road, it seems logical that much of these funds will be used to shore up the Italian road system. This is especially important in light of the fact that Italian road quality ranks among the worst in the EU according to the World Economic Forum[2]. While increased budgets would be good news for Italian road infrastructure, it will still be critical that this money be used efficiently, as highway, interstate, and street maintenance expenses continue to rise due to outdated and inefficient survey techniques that fail to yield actionable insights in near real time.

Static Surveys to Continuous Monitoring

Road operators in Italy are responsible for maintaining over 20,000 kilometers of national highways, seven thousand kilometers of expressways and 150,000 kilometers of regional roads[3]. Italians depend on well-maintained roads to travel, conduct business, and perform daily activities using their personal vehicles. Despite highly accurate survey techniques that utilize LIDAR, laser, and satellite technology, stakeholders struggle to manage with the continuous deterioration of roads. Inevitably this leads to constant construction, slowed traffic, and increasing maintenance costs. And by the time a survey team has completed their measurements, the data is already dated, only providing a historical context. As these surveys are conducted on an annual or bi-annual basis, this data often lacks depth and is highly static.

Mobileye Data Services offers the means to dramatically improve survey workflows and automate the collection process for road asset data. Mobileye automatically builds asset inventories that are constantly updated in near real time and enriched with aggregated driver habits. Road asset management is augmented using camera vision and advanced algorithms, as Mobileye automatically captures and shares relevant data to illustrate detailed information on road networks without manual effort. Tapping into a network of Mobileye-equipped vehicles, road operators can advance from a survey process that captures only a single point in time, to constant monitoring of road assets, without adding additional survey vehicles to the road. Data is exported into geographic information system (GIS) layers that are compatible with all GIS platforms meaning road owners can instantly enjoy and interpret highly accurate maps with rapid refresh rates.

Modular Data Services

Decision makers value the breadth of surveying methods and AI powered data collection techniques afforded by Mobileye. The Mobileye Road Network Survey collects over 15 data types that signify and distinguish specific assets such as road edges, markings, traffic lights, and traffic signs. From this data, Mobileye can help governments just beginning to digitize data inventories or assist more advanced cities keep assets up to date. Mobileye data is output as several distinct GIS layers or APIs, allowing customers to pick from modular offerings that best match their goals and budget. From this data, Mobileye provides a base map allowing stakeholders to pinpoint exactly where specific road assets are located at a point in time. Once details on the road furniture and road network have been mapped, governments can integrate specific monitoring services to regularly take stock of new or missing traffic signs, or which poles may be leaning and in need of repair. By continuously collecting this data and delivering it to road asset managers early and often, they can proactively improve the efficiency and safety of their roads and mobility networks.

Deeper Insights from Crowdsourced Data

One of the strongest differentiators offered by Mobileye is the frequency at which information is updated by a constant in-vehicle presence. Mobileye Mobility Intelligence derives insights from crowdsourced vehicle data on a weekly or monthly basis based on client preference. This data is delivered in near-real time as averages depicting driving habits over road segments at specific intervals, without collecting any private data from drivers. This includes GIS layers containing the headway between vehicles, harsh braking, or pedestrian collision warnings which are classified as near miss incidents to better understand all roads, especially high-risk corridors and intersections. Mobileye translates these aggregated data points into a road risk score along particular road segments. This allows stakeholders to better understand road and infrastructure to improve safety outcomes and reduce accident severity.

The true value of Mobileye Data Services is realized by combining individual data services. The customized GIS layers produced by the system can be overlaid and leveraged to address the unique needs of any region. For instance, while AI asset surveys provide information about traffic sign condition, understanding how drivers interact with the road provides a new level of depth in analysis.

From this depth of information, decision makers can better decide where to place road assets and preemptively ensure safer, smoother flow of traffic. Moreover, collecting and delivering data early and often ensures objective views of roads necessary for proper transportation planning. Crowdsourced, continuous data streams from thousands of inputs help cities accurately count pedestrian and bicycle traffic instead of making estimates from static intersection cameras. Mobileye adds further value by providing a full collection and processing mechanism that saves clients resources on what normally would be sizeable data integration and management costs. Furthermore, governments can rest assured that data is fully anonymous while removing human error in the surveying process and automating time consuming, manual processes.

Conclusion

Mobileye helps road operators transition to a smarter future by first managing static and highly dynamic road asset data sets. Proactive and continuous monitoring techniques help road operators streamline survey processes while providing the tools necessary to build better infrastructure. Today’s roads are filled with increasingly smart vehicles that spend hours in congestion due to decision making and planning that lacks the most up-to-date, actionable data. The full potential of smart cities and smart vehicles will rely on improved road asset management and mobility planning.

This translates into benefits for all stakeholders – higher quality roads, built on trustworthy data that make roadways safer and more efficient for all users.

For further information on Mobileye Data Services click here: https://www.mobileye.com/en/data/

Fabio Pagura is the Regional Sales Manager for Mobileye in Italy. Before joining Mobileye, he worked for several years in the IT sector for companies such as Microsoft and IBM where he gained extensive knowledge of IOT, Maintenance and Data Analytics solutions.

1] https://www.webuildvalue.com/en/infrastructure/italy-infrastructure-maintenance.html

[2] https://ec.europa.eu/transport/facts-fundings/scoreboard/countries/italy/investments-infrastructure_en

[3] https://www.webuildvalue.com/en/infrastructure/italy-infrastructure-maintenance.html