Road condition assessment made easy

Swedish geographic modelling specialist Blom and Finnish company Suomen Kuntotekniikka are cooperating on road condition assessment projects using BlomSTREET imagery to enable visual assessment of roads requiring repairs and providing budgetary analysis of the maintenance and construction tasks. BlomSTREET imagery provides automatic traffic sign inventory using official traffic sign libraries. The company says recent projects demonstrate that the automatic method provides a completion of better than 90% of
March 19, 2015 Read time: 1 min
Swedish geographic modelling specialist Blom and Finnish company Suomen Kuntotekniikka are cooperating on road condition assessment projects using BlomSTREET imagery to enable visual assessment of roads requiring repairs and providing budgetary analysis of the maintenance and construction tasks.

BlomSTREET imagery provides automatic traffic sign inventory using official traffic sign libraries. The company says recent projects demonstrate that the automatic method provides a completion of better than 90% of an inventory project. Problems caused by dense vegetation, partial signs and other intrusions can be improved using manual editing.

A standard traffic sign inventory includes capturing coordinates (x,y,z) and orientation, standard deviation, sign type and any text contained on the sign itself.  Once images have been captured for inventory and assessment purposes they can also be used for city planning and 3D modelling.

Related Content

  • Improving traffic flow with automated urban traffic control
    April 25, 2012
    Alterations to traffic signals and variable message signs are being activated to reduce congestion as soon as it occurs, through a pioneering fully automatic UTC system. Jon Masters reports In the South Yorkshire town of Barnsley in England, strategies for dealing with traffic congestion have been devised from analysis of queue data, then made to work automatically: “This represents the future of ITS for urban traffic control,” says Siemens Consultancy Services senior engineer David Carr. Over a career span
    Read More
  • Using electricity to power road freight
    October 22, 2014
    Next year sees the start of the first real-life electrified road system for transporting freight. Worldwide freight transportation is predicted to double by 2050 but despite expansion of global rail infrastructure only one third of this additional freight transport can be handled by trains. This means that the largest proportion of freight transport will continue to be by road and as a result, experts expect global CO2 emissions from road freight traffic to more than double by 2050.
    Read More
  • C/AVs could mean cheaper roads
    October 28, 2019
    The safety benefits of C/AVs have long been promoted – but research suggests they should also contribute to cheaper roads. David Crawford investigates the potential benefits in infrastructure costs Building narrower freeway lanes to accommodate the enhanced route-tracking capabilities of connected and autonomous vehicles (C/AVs), running in platoon conditions, could result in cost savings of £0.5 million (€0.56 million or US$6.5 million) for every km of road length built. Such benefits could be secur
    Read More
  • Assessing the potential of in-vehicle enforcement systems
    December 4, 2012
    Jason Barnes considers the social and ethical ramifications of using in-vehicle safety technologies to fulfil enforcement functions. Although policy documents often imply close correlation between enforcement, compliance and safety – in part, as a counter to accusations that enforcement is rather more concerned with revenue generation – there is a noticeable reluctance among policy makers and auto manufacturers to exploit in-vehicle safety systems for enforcement applications. From a technical perspective t
    Read More

Highlighted Content