Maintaining the quality and safety of highways is crucial for ensuring smooth and efficient transportation systems. Proactive highway maintenance plays a vital role in this endeavour by employing advanced technologies to detect defects early and plan maintenance activities accordingly.
Implementing proactive highway maintenance requires:
- Automated inspections
- Proactive planning
- Adaptability in changing conditions
- Real-time condition monitoring
- Virtual re-inspections
Automated inspections
One of the key advantages of proactive highway maintenance is the use of automated highway monitoring systems. These systems enable highway inspections to be conducted up to four times faster than traditional methods.
By leveraging technology, such as computer vision, these monitoring systems can swiftly capture data about road conditions, signs, and lines - allowing maintenance teams to cover larger areas in shorter time frames, resulting in significant cost and time savings.
Proactive Planning
By detecting issues at their initial stages, maintenance crews can address them promptly, preventing further deterioration and minimising the risk of accidents or damage to vehicles.
This proactive approach helps extend the lifespan of roads by nipping potential problems in the bud before they escalate into more significant and costly repairs. Proactive maintenance can drop repair costs by 39%.
Adaptability in Changing Conditions - Severe Weather Management
Another benefit of proactive maintenance is the ability to adapt maintenance plans to sudden changes caused by severe weather conditions.
By continuously monitoring the condition of assets in real-time, maintenance teams can quickly identify areas that require immediate attention after extreme weather events.
For example, after heavy rainfall, systems may detect areas with compromised or weakened road surfaces. With this information, maintenance crews can prioritise repairs, reducing the chances of further damage and ensuring the safety of road users.
Real-Time Asset Monitoring
By aggregating data from various sources, including automated inspections and reports from field crews, these systems create a comprehensive picture of the network's health.
Maintenance teams can analyse this data, identify patterns, and make informed decisions regarding repairs and maintenance schedules. With a deeper understanding of asset conditions, maintenance teams can effectively allocate resources, optimise maintenance plans, and maximise the lifespan of highway infrastructure.
Virtual Re-inspections - Historical Data Accessibility
Virtual re-inspections enable maintenance teams to revisit their network digitally without physically returning to the site. By creating a digital route view, stakeholders gain access to all historical data, allowing for easy comparison and analysis of asset conditions over time.
This allows maintenance teams to track the effectiveness of their strategies, evaluate the impact of previous repairs, and make data-driven decisions regarding future maintenance plans. Further enabling proactive highway maintenance.
Discover how Route Reports accelerates your proactive highway maintenance approach
Contact us or book a demo to discover how our automated highway monitoring solution helps create safer and more sustainable environments for your community.
