Potholes in Boston are an issue we all confront on a seasonal basis. Once in the throes of the harsh winter months, potholes riddle our streetscape from one corner of the city to the next. Come the spring, Public Works crews spend hours filling gaping holes in the with a fresh batch of concrete. A new innovation out of Northeastern University, though, could render potholes extinct.
Back in May we wrote about StreetBump, an app created by the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics that uses data donated by private users, like you an me, to alert road workers of potholes. StreetBump captures data off of the vehicle’s accelerometer to analyze and infer the conditions of the road, subsequently identifying potholes.
The brainchild from Northeastern engineers, Versatile Onboard Traffic Embedded Roaming Sensors (or VOTERS if you’re partial to acronyms), takes the idea of StreetBump one step further by identifying questionable infrastructure before they become axel-busting, tire-popping potholes.
Since January of 2014, the City of Boston has opened and closed 16,350 pothole cases, according to open city data. That number could very well be reduced to zero.
VOTERS works by outfitting fleets of city vehicles – anything from a trash truck to a taxi or even a delivery vehicle – with various sensors. They then aggregate data that includes “acoustic waves generated by tires and high frequency impulse radar to detect surface defects, subsurface delamination, corrosion, layer thickness and properties, millimeter-wave radar to determine near-surface properties of pavement, complemented by optical systems,” according to its website.
In essence, VOTERS tracks potholes before they even turn into potholes and sends that data to the applicable crews in real-time. Data can also be compared over time, so that the city can properly monitor the degradation process of the spots most in need of repair. It’s convenient, inexpensive and has the potential to cover a city’s expansiveness.
“This is not a crazy idea,” Professor Ming Wang, leading the charge on VOTERS, told Fast.Co Exist. “It could be cheap. Every car could have it – it would be that easy.”
Northeastern notes that “the technology is considered ready for transfer to the private sector for commercialization,” which means that our own vehicles could someday soon carry this technology, which also, by its nature, helps to bridge the gap between citizen engagement and their government.
The Citizens Connect app, also a brainchild of the New Urban Mechanics, works based on this same principle, affording residents an open line of communication that results in upgrades around the city. Not surprisingly some of the highest volumes of reports generated through Citizens Connect relate to potholes.
h/t Fast.Co Exist
