Service

Road quality monitoring as a service

Roads is available as a service for public road authorities (cities, municipalities) and commercial construction firms. Roads provides up-to-date and objective information on the surface state of all roads, only a mouse click away, and at a much lower cost than current road inspection services. This allows clients to professionalize their decisions on maintenance, instead of relying on visual inspection or complaints from citizens. The technology is broadly applicable and covers local roads that can have a wide variety of pavements.

Roads provides a complete service. At start-up, a number of small sensor units are installed in client or third-party vehicles, converting these vehicles into low-cost real-time road surface inspection devices, collecting data through their ordinary circulation. Once set up, clients can easily access the latest information on the surface state of their roads online.

More information about the Roads service can be found in the FAQ section.

Why choose Roads?

Effortless
Detailed and timely information is available online without the need for expensive measurement campaigns or expert personnel
Accurate
Roads has been calibrated against highly accurate laser scanning and CPX measurements
Coverage
Roads covers all local roads, not only the major roads, making it the perfect choice for local road authorities

Timely
Road surface state maps are continuously updated, such that the results from road maintenance efforts can be monitored
Support
Service uptime is permanently monitored, hardware is updated if needed, and continuous support is included
Cost
Roads is more than 100 times less expensive than current methods that are sufficiently accurate to allow preventive maintenance

Frequently asked questions

I‘m in! What’s next? How does it work?

If you are interested, please contact us for a quote. Our offer will consist of a start-up cost and a yearly fee, based on the amount (km) of roads that you want to monitor, derived from the OpenStreetMap database. If you decide to take the offer, we will together look for a number of well suited vehicles, and we will install sensor units in these vehicles. You can expect to receive your first maps within a couple of months.

What kind of maps/information will I get?

Clients receive a monthly update of the surface state of their roads. This monthly update consists of a map with the most recent results for all roads with sufficient number of cars/passages, in 20m segments, and a similar map in segments roughly from crossing to crossing. Next to this, variants of the above maps are provided with the differences (from the moment they become available) between the most recent results and those of last month, 3 months ago, 6 months ago, 1 year ago and 2 years ago.

Is there an online interface for viewing road quality maps?

At this stage, we do not provide a full-blown online map-viewing interface. Most clients want to integrate the maps into their own (GIS) system, rather than to use yet another online proprietary system. Instead, we provide a basic online interface where clients can log in and download their maps (historic and new) in their desired format.

Can the road quality maps be imported in a GIS system?

Yes, this is actually our desired way of delivering maps to clients. Maps are provided in the form of Shapefiles, GeoJSON files and CSV files (for import in Excel). These are very common GIS file types which should work with any GIS system.

Can the road quality maps be imported in a Pavement Management System (PMS)?

We do not prefer or recommend any PMS system in particular. As long as the system you are using allows importing Shapefiles, GeoJSON files or CSV files, this should be possible. If not, we are open to tailor our map formats to the needs of specific PMS systems on request of clients.

How can I monitor road degradation over time?

Our maps are monthly updated, and clients have access to all historic maps for their area, which makes it easy to follow-up road surface degradation for specific roads over time. For your convenience, we already provide maps with the differences between the most recent results and those of last month, 3 months ago, 6 months ago, 1 year ago and 2 years ago.

What types of roads are covered?

The Roads technology works on all types of road surface, including asphalt, concrete and cobble stones.

Are all roads covered?

Our service covers all roads, not only major roads but also local roads. However, road coverage depends on vehicle circulation: roads that carry a high amount of traffic will be covered very well, whereas roads that carry only a sporadic vehicle passby (such as dead end roads) will be covered to a lesser extent. Vehicles are equiped with sensor units with the aim to cover at least 85% of all roads. Note that our sensor units are equiped with a dead reckoning GPS receiver, such that even roads beneath bridges and in tunnels are covered.

Vehicles

What kind of vehicles are best suited?

For best measurement results, we strongly prefer ordinary passenger vehicles. Small vans are also possible if it is difficult to find ordinary vehicles. Electric or hybrid cars are preferred, but petrol/gasline vehicles are also ok. Large vans, trucks, buses or bicylces are not possible due to the amount of noise level contamination from the engine or from other vehicles. Next to this, in order to achieve a good coverage, we prefer vehicles that are driven frequently (if possible more than 30 hours per month), that are not used exclusively for short trips or stop-an-go trips, and that do not take the same trajectory each time. Some examples of well-suited vehicles are city service vehicles, taxis, home nursing vehicles, vehicles of general physicians or veterinarians, or vehicles of real estate agents.

What if a vehicle goes out of service?

When a vehicle equiped with a sensor unit is taken out of service, the sensor box can be removed easily, and can be returned for reinitialization and installation in a new vehicle.

Sensor units

How does a sensor unit look like? How large is it?

A sensor unit consists of a small rectangular box, with dimensions 12 x 8 x 6 cm.

How long does a sensor unit last?

Roads sensor units are expected to last the lifetime of the vehicle, and should therefore never be replaced. In the unlikely event of a malfunction, the sensor unit will be replaced as part of our service. We monitor proper sensor unit functioning continuously.

Where are sensor units installed in the vehicle?

Sensor units are typically installed inside the trunk, behind the inner lining of the vehicle (so they are not visible), and right above one of the rear wheel cases. This location is best suited for picking up tire-road noise. Sensor units do not need to be installed in a particular direction; we have an algorithm in place that automatically derives the orientation of the sensor unit based on the direction of gravity and the driving behavior of the vehicle.

How are sensor units powered?

Sensor units get their power from the 12V power circuit in the vehicle. Sensor units are typically installed after ignition, which means that they turn on when the vehicle is started, and shut down when the vehicle is stopped. Sensor units therefore will not drain the battery of the vehicle.

How much power does a sensor unit consume?

A sensor unit consumes about 5W of power, which is neglegible compared to the total power consumption of a vehicle.

Data policy & privacy

What do the sensor units actually measure?

The sensor units measure the tire-road noise level spectrum and the 3D movement of the vehicle. Next to this, the GPS trajectory (instantaneous location and speed) of the vehicle is recorded, which is used to locate measurements on the road map. Data is measured continuously as long as the ignition of the vehicle is turned on, but measurements are only processed if the vehicle drives at least 15 km/h (only above this speed there is sufficient tire-road noise generated).

How long is data stored?

Data of individual vehicle trips is securely stored for as long as needed to perform map matching and road surface state estimation. Trip data of particular client vehicles can be stored for extended periods of time in case this is desired by those clients. Road surface state maps (which do not contain any link to individual trips) are stored for at least 5 years, to make it possible to monitor road degradation over time.

How is data being anonymized?

Vehicle trip trajectories are only stored for the time necessary to process the various maps that are provided with the service. Moreover, trips do not include the first and last part of the GPS trajectory (it is not sent to the cloud), hence, it is not possible to know where exactly a trip started and ended. Vehicles and trips ID’s are random numbers that can not be linked to individual clients or drivers.

What happens if one of the vehicles in my fleet drives outside of my area?

Sensor units keep collecting road surface state information, even when they drive outside a client’s area. We like to separate data collection and map generation. This has an important advantage for all clients: you as a client are also profiting from data collected by vehicles of other clients when they drive in your area. However, clients only have access to the maps generated for their specific area.

Road quality monitoring as a service

Why choose Roads?

Effortless

Accurate

Coverage

Timely

Support

Cost

Frequently asked questions

Service

Vehicles

Sensor units

Data policy & privacy

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Company

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