Using Al to support highways inspections

摘要

Surrey CC looks after over 3,300 miles of roads across the county, repairing around 50,000 potholes per year and employing 14 highways safety officers to carry out inspections. Along with local authorities throughout the country, over the past few years we have seen an increase in defects on our roads. The weather is our biggest issue and, coupled with years of underfunding, this means our infrastructure has a lack of resilience. To help address this issue, in 2019 we held a three-day workshop called 'Rethinking Potholes'. This brought together clients, contractors, consultants, SMEs, and tech start-ups along with council staff to think creatively about solutions on potholes. One of the topics was around Al being used to help identify road defects and it was agreed that we would investigate solutions.