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We are all affected by the quality of our roads. Wherever we want to go, we are often reminded by the fact that the road surface changes. We do not like to drive over bumps, as it is uncomfortable and can damage our cars. In the worst case, they can cause accidents.
Governments, cities, and companies spend huge amounts of money to maintain the road network, and a challenge is to always know where to take action. The road quality is often a subject for complains by the citizens, but the methods for an objective evaluation is rare. Ocular/manual inspections are on one side, extremely expensive special measurement vehicles are on the other side. It is impossible to make a comprehensive manual inspection as it takes lots of time; it will (in any case) be subjective. The special made measurement vehicles are too expensive and only allows measurements to some prior motorways or highways once per year.
Surface roughness, often shortened to just roughness, is a measure of the texture of a surface. It is quantified by the vertical deviations of a real surface from its ideal form. If these deviations are large, the surface is rough; if they are small the surface is smooth. Roughness is typically considered to be the high frequency, short wavelength component of a measured surface (see surface Metrology).
Roughness plays an important role in determining how a real object will interact with its environment. Rough surfaces usually wear more quickly and have higher friction coefficients than smooth surfaces (see Tribology). Roughness is often a good predictor of the performance of a mechanical component, since irregularities in the surface may form nucleation sites for cracks or corrosion.
Although roughness is usually undesirable, it is difficult and expensive to control in manufacturing. Decreasing the roughness of a surface will usually increase exponentially its manufacturing costs. This often results in a trade-off between the manufacturing cost of a component and its performance in application.
The International Roughness Index (IRI) is the roughness index most commonly obtained from measured longitudinal road profiles. It is calculated using a quarter-car vehicle math model, whose response is accumulated to yield a roughness index with units of slope (in/mi, m/km, etc).[1] Since its introduction in 1986,[2] IRI has become the road roughness index most commonly used worldwide for evaluating and managing road systems.
The IRI was defined as a mathematical property of a two-dimensional road profile (a longitudinal slice of the road showing elevation as it varies with longitudinal distance along a travelled track on the road). As such, it can be calculated from profiles obtained with any valid measurement method, ranging from static rod and level surveying equipment to high-speed inertial profiling systems.
The Android Road Quality (ARQ) app is using an Android Smartphone to register vibrations during driving. The ARQ analysis transform the vibrations to a quality value, and is developed in research for the Swedish Transport Administration. The service will gradually be launched during 2012 with the aim to gradually gather data from all over the world. The city of Gävle is the first client to test it under field circumstance. The system is as global as GPS and uses Google maps open layer to monitor data.
The smartphone analyzes data from 100 vibration samples each second.
The analyze algorithm is developed from a research project with the National Transport Administration between 2003–2006.
Every second, a road quality value is tagged by a GPS location and stored in a text file on the Android smart phone.
After finishing the measurement, data is sent by WiFi to the Qtex server. Each 24 hours, the map is updated from the last day’s measurements.
In Sweden, the national road database (nvdb) is used in open layers over Google maps. It’s also possible to show data in open street maps or as dots on Google maps.
Data can also be exported to specific GIS-tools for planning road maintenance or routing services.
“The system gives unique and direct information from the road network. We gain a better foundation for decisions and can work more with quality. We can see where actions are most needed.”
- Petter Winter, Gävle kommun
1) Roads are built and changes state due to wear, from traffic and weather. Bad roads are costly to maintain!
2) During 2003-2006 Etex runs an R&D project for the Swedish National Road Administration, to transfer vibrations to a road quality value.
3) 2010 Android phones reach the market, with built in capacity for measuring vibrations. positioning and telecom. The Android Road Quality app was developed and tested during 2011.
4) GPS is used to position a road quality value each second.
5) Data transfers preferably through Wi-Fi (or 3G/4G) to Qtex server database in the Amazon cloud.
6) The Qtex website is updated.
7) Data can be exported in prefered format (ex. shape) for use in custom GIS- tools and application services.
Route guidance with ARQ-data can help you to avoid the bad roads!
The Android Road Quality application was developed during 2011, and several test drives were made with different cars over various bumps in different speeds. During the beginning of 2012 the City of Gävle will be the first to run the system in an operational mode. Gävle is an extensive user of new information technologies including GIT/GIS and is therefore suitable for testing and putting up developed functional demands on the services. Already in an early phase, the data is considered interesting and valuable, although we know there will be adaptations and adjustments continuously during the test.
The current winter and snow in Sweden momentarily causes dynamic textures on the roads. The plan is to map all the city’s some 2000 km roads also after the frost, as well as mapping the bicycle paths.
Roadroid (Folder Swedish)
Roadroid (Folder English)
TV4 (Video)
Arbetarbladet (Newspaper)
Gavle dagblad (Newspaper)
Ljusdals-Posten (Newspaper)
Visualiseringsteknik issue 1-2012 pages 28-29 (Magazine)
Länsrapport Gävleborg Q1 2012 (Report)
Roadroid - Road Quality Monitoring with Smartphones (Presentation)
Photo examples from measuring: photo1 photo2
photo3
photo4 photo5 photo6
photo7 photo8
Reference at the city of Gävle is:
Petter Winther
Phone: 026-17 80 00
E-mail: petter.winther@gavle.se
Gävle kommun - 801 84 Gävle
We are now interested to find more clients around the world!
The service cost is divided in:
- Yearly license cost depending on the size of your road network.
- Cost for installation, education and start-up.
- Consultancy for possible adaptations, export formats and support.
During 2012 we will have good offers to join and test the service.
For more information please contact:
Lars Forslöf
Email: lars.forslof@roadroid.se
Phone: +46 72 2426620