Skip to main content

Hi-tech road surface scanner surveys West Midlands highways

The condition of highways in the UK’s West Midlands is to be surveyed using the latest vehicle-based technology from Yotta DCL under a contract awarded by the consortium of West Midlands Local Authorities. The highway technology and surveying company will use its new Tempest survey vehicle to capture road surface condition and forward facing video across the region’s road network, plus pavement images at normal traffic speeds. Yotta DCL will survey a total of 1250 km of roads under the terms of the co
August 21, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
The condition of highways in the UK’s West Midlands is to be surveyed using the latest vehicle-based technology from 5956 Yotta DCL under a contract awarded by the consortium of West Midlands Local Authorities.

The highway technology and surveying company will use its new Tempest survey vehicle to capture road surface condition and forward facing video across the region’s road network, plus pavement images at normal traffic speeds.

Yotta DCL will survey a total of 1250 km of roads under the terms of the contract, which could be extended by three years. By providing both scanner and forward facing video and pavement images, the Authorities will be able to cross reference road condition data against high quality images. The camera technology onboard the new Tempest vehicle is a major advance in quality, breaks new ground in high definition video, and is unique to Yotta DCL.

Tempest has been developed using new processing technologies to improve accuracy and the vehicles are equipped with forward facing cameras which can be used to provide street level images.  The system is designed and built exclusively by Yotta DCL and is accredited by the UK’s Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) for UK scanner and Traffic Speed Condition Survey (TRACS) specifications.

“By overlaying the scanner data onto the video we can get a real life view of the data. The ability to cross reference the data against the video helps to guide our decision making as we can actually see the condition of the road surface on screen,” says Paul Price, senior engineer, Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Urban utility
    July 24, 2012
    Steve Lane, Commercial Director at Triteq, talks about the successful deployment of ZigBee in Barcelona where a low-cost wireless metropolitan network for location and citizen services was established. The project, he says, demonstrates ZigBee's effectiveness as an urban communications system solution ZigBee is based on the IEEE radio frequency standard 802.15.4 - 2006 for Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPAN), which provides a license-free radio frequency for a flexible, robust private wireless network. Z
  • Caltrans trials Xerox’s Passenger Detection System
    October 30, 2015
    Xerox’s Passenger Detection System has been trialled in California and compared with the state’s team of human counters giving some interesting results, as Colin Sowman discovers. Like others adopting high-occupancy and high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes for congestion management, Caltrans has faced challenges with compliance in what has been effectively an ‘honour system’ with drivers trusted to set their tags correctly or comply with the multi-passenger requirement.
  • Connected vehicle data promises advanced weather warning
    August 29, 2012
    Connected vehicle research and development is being aimed at improving driver safety and mobility, but is also promising advanced weather monitoring and warning systems. Sheldon Drobot reports. Over the last few years, the United States’ Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Research & Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) have joined forces to promote safety, mobility and the environment through a new connected vehicle initiative. This aims to enable wireless communication between vehicles, infra
  • Minneapolis-St. Paul’s Go-To gets the Cubic touch
    April 23, 2024
    Contactless fare system is centrepiece of upgrade to transit ticketing in the Twin Cities