Novel low-cost technology to improve road safety in Europe
As fatal road accidents continue to diminish, the EU is steadily moving towards 'Vision Zero'. The concept revolves around making deaths on the road as unacceptable as they are in a factory or in other transport modes such as air or rail. This, however, requires significant improvements related to road networks, drivers and cars. The EU-funded HERMES (Innovative, highly efficient road surface measurement and control system) project worked on improving road infrastructure through better measurement of roads to facilitate safety enhancement and maintenance. Project partners developed an innovative and cost-efficient road quality measurement solution. The technology can measure a road's longitudinal and transversal profiles simultaneously from a specially equipped vehicle travelling at normal speeds. From a moving vehicle, this integrated solution for road profile measurements accurately identifies and pinpoints locations that require urgent repair. It costs less and is much more accurate than existing systems. Specifically, the purpose-built vehicle is equipped with laser projection and camera imaging equipment that record images of road surfaces. The HERMES team developed an automated pothole detection algorithm to automatically characterise the quality of the road surface and detect potentially hazardous defects such as potholes. Researchers designed a novel information system to gather, extract and exchange data with existing relevant systems. It enables seamless integration with existing infrastructure, and allows for efficient processing of large amounts of data collected by the custom vehicles. The technology can be integrated into a system developed by the EU project EXEHON to relay informational and warning messages about road surface conditions and hazards to road users via their mobile phones. HERMES will help road authorities achieve good ride quality in their road network, reduce fuel consumption and help maintain vehicles in better shape.
Keywords
Road safety, HERMES, road surface measurement, potholes, road surface conditions