Two additional regional New South Wales councils and a Sydney-based Transport for NSW team have joined an innovative artificial intelligence project, which seeks to revolutionise road asset maintenance and operations.
The Asset AI project uses a combination of dash-mounted cameras on council vehicles and sensors to detect, log - and eventually predict - critical road defect issues like damaged signs, faded line markings, potholes and rutting, and escalate them based on severity and safety risk, to council asset maintenance teams.
Shoalhaven City and Warren Shire councils have just joined the project and are now feeding data into the platform and receiving updates through the system.
The Transport for NSW asset inspection team that carries out quality assurance monitoring of state roads across Sydney will also trial three vehicles fitted with dash-mounted cameras.
Asset AI is a Transport for NSW-led project, in partnership with the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia (IPWEA) NSW and ACT Division and City of Canterbury Bankstown.
The platform uses the IPWEA NSW and ACT risk-based defect priority scoring system to help maintenance crews ensure they address the most critical defects first, reducing the overall risk to road users and the community.
Canterbury-Bankstown and Griffith councils were the first councils to trial the Australian-first technology with data f transport.nsw.gov.au/assetairom Asset AI cameras on vehicles including street sweepers and utes feeding near-real time road condition updates into the platform.
The application allows councils to easily see the location of each issue detected by Asset AI®, pull up images and severity ratings for defects, and receive an overall rating of the condition of the road network.
Councils ready to be onboarded in 2024 include Liverpool Plains Shire and Mid Coast. Another 48 local councils across NSW have also expressed an interest in joining the project.transport.nsw.gov.au/assetai
Asset AI received a $2.9 million funding co-contribution through the NSW Government’s Smart Places Acceleration Program, a special reservation under the Digital Restart Fund.
Transport for NSW Executive Director of Road Maintenance and Motorway Partnerships, Matthew Wilson said: “Asset AI is an exciting and ambitious project, and we are now for the first time trailing its use for quality assurance monitoring of our state roads around Sydney.
“There are nearly 3000 kilometres of state roads around Sydney with 85,000 metres of line markings, 5,000 metres of median strips and more than 800 bridges and 18 tunnels.
“It’s great to see our Transport teams as early adopters using this new technology and its potential to enhance our current quality inspection capabilities and help shift contracted road maintenance programs towards preventative, and ideally predictive maintenance.”