WHITBY – Pothole detection AI earns Durham Region global ‘Smart 50’ award
Published March 15, 2022 at 9:41 am
Durham Region has been awarded for its innovative spirit by way of a Smart Cities Connect “Smart 50” award for a first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence designed to detect and record potholes, dubbed ROVER AI.
Each year Smart Cities Connect, a innovation conference focused on celebrating municipal-level technology, cites 50 communities around the world to “honour the most transformative Smart projects.”
This year Durham Region, alongside fellow Canadian communities Hamilton Kitchener and Winnipeg, were honoured among municipalities from Australia, Germany, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United States.
The Region’s project awarded as among the Smart 50 concerns pothole maintenance. Durham is using a smartphone app called ROVER AI to identify potholes, storing the location data in a cloud server.
ROVER was developed by Richmond Hill-based company Visual Defence. A phone with the app installed is placed on the windshield of a Regional maintenance vehicle. The phone’s camera then scans the road and uses machine learning technology to identify and make note of potholes or road deficiencies as the car patrols.
“Unlike human inspectors, the technology doesn’t blink, get distracted or have to compete with the focus required for the safe operation the vehicle,” reads the award announcement.
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Once an image is snapped, ROVER analyzes the image to ensure it’s an issue that needs to be addressed. Regional staff can then hop on their web browser to access the information ROVER collected including; the GPS Coordinates, a high resolution image, direction of travel, street number/range, detection time, road class (dictating repair priority), and pothole size and depth.
“We saw an opportunity in improving the road patrol program and pothole patching work program through partnering with technology provider Visual Defence, on the development and use of its AI solution,” said Eric Lamain, Manager, Maintenance Operations & Fleet Services.
“As a result, our work has been greatly simplified, our roads are better maintained and citizen complaints have greatly dropped,” he continued.
Staff can then sort by these data categories to quickly and efficiently prioritize roadwork. The collected data is also collated into heat maps showing which roads are in dire need of repair.
Over the last year and a half, the project has logged 6,250 potholes on regional roads, resulting in fewer calls for service from the public and more efficient repairs.
This better aligns Durham’s roads with the Ontario Minimum Maintenance Standard, reduces legal risks to Region, and provides a digital database to monitor roads.
The ROVER AI project is funded through government grants.
This project is the first such use of AI for pothole repair in Canada and represents part of Durham Region’s Intelligent Communities Plan to integrate technology in the regional infrastructure.
“This Smart 50 Award demonstrates Durham Region’s commitment to leading the way in technology and innovation. As Durham’s population continues to grow, our services are also growing. Durham is an innovative region and open to piloting new technology that will improve our service delivery,” said Susan Siopis, Commissioner of Works
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