Roadroid continuous road condition monitoring with smart phones

Abstract

Road condition is an important variable to measure in order to decrease road and vehicle operating/maintenance costs, but also to increase ride comfort and traffic safety. By using the built-in vibration sensor in smartphones, it is possible to collect road roughness data which can be an indicator of road condition up to a level of class 2 or 3 in a simple and cost efficient way. Since data collection therefore is possible to be done more frequently one can better monitor roughness changes over time. The continuous data collection can also give early warnings of changes and damage, enable new ways to work in the operational road maintenance management, and can serve as a guide for more accurate surveys for strategic asset management and pavement planning. Data collection with smartphones will not directly compete with class 1 precision profiles measurements, but instead complement them in a powerful way. This gives a powerful support to road inventories, inception reports, tactical planning, program analysis and support maintenance project evaluation. Collected measurment data are wirelessly transferred by the operator when needed via a web service to an internet mapping server with spatial filtering functions. The measured data can be aggregated in preferred sections (default 100m), as well as exported to other Geographical Information Systems (GIS) or road management system. By broadcasting road condition warnings through standards for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) the information could provide new kinds of dynamic and valuable input to automotive navigation systems and digital route guides for special traffic etc.