Video Description
(modified van driving toward camera. It has lots of high tech 230 degree cameras, antennas, GPS, lasers, and other equipment on top)
on screen text: This vehicle is the driving force behind improving our roads.
(side view of van driving past)
on screen text: which roads need the most attention?
(close up view of monitor inside of van. shows a spreadsheet of the data being collected. Two people in the front seat.)
on screen text: Where should the city spend its resources?
(closeup of equipment on top of van.)
on screen text: This technology help to answer those questions.
(Looking down Pikes Peak as the van drives up the highway. Distant lower elevations in the background display how high up the road is)
on screen text: 1408 linear miles of the city's roadways will be assessed.
(back of van covered in stickers saying "Keep back 50 feet," "Caution," "slow", "road testing." large camera on top of the vehicle points at the roadway behind the van.)
on screen text: using laser, GPS, and 3D technology to help our Public Works employees make important decisions.
(van driving away. Man in passenger seat of the van pushing buttons on a large, flat device full of buttons, a monitor with a map, and a laptop. van driving away.)
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – The City’s public works department is using the latest industry technology to assess its public road infrastructure citywide. The information collected will allow maintenance and operations staff to make data-driven decisions for project planning through 2028. All 1,804 linear miles of the city’s roadways will be assessed, including, for the first time, all alleyways. Now underway, this collection process will take approximately eight weeks.
Colorado Springs first collected data by this means in 2017 and has used it to plan all maintenance infrastructure needs, like crack and chip sealing, since that time. It has also heavily informed the 2C paving list. Prior to using this system, public works relied on a manual process that took nearly four years to collect similar data. Now, thanks to this technology, the data is collected in only eight weeks, and will be analyzed and available in three months.
“This system is an incredibly helpful and efficient tool that helps us make the best decisions possible for keeping our roads healthy and safe,” said Corey Farkas, streets manager. “With our drastic freeze-thaw conditions, roadways can change significantly in a short amount of time, and this really gives us the best picture possible of how our overall system is performing, and where we need to spend more resources.”
The roads are assessed by a high-tech car outfitted with a Roadway Collection Vehicle System that includes features like a laser measuring system for longitudinal, texture and depth profiling, GPS positioning, street-level 3D imagery, and a laser crack measuring system. The system grades the health of each road segment with a score of 0-100, with 100 being brand new. The scores account for ride quality, types of distress or defects (like potholes or cracking), the severity of distress and the quantity or percentage of how much of the pavement sample is affected by each defect.
Public works plans to use this collection system once every three years.
The $265,750 project is funded by the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority (PPRTA) sales tax. Colorado Springs partnered with the Pikes Peak Area Council of Governments to contract with Marker Geospatial on the project. As part of this partnership, the cities of Manitou Springs and Fountain will also participate in this assessment for the first time. Those costs and miles are not included in the Colorado Springs portion.
Image Description
Marker Geospatial's Roadway Collection Vehicle System Overview.
Graphic of a modified mini van with the following elements.
- Positioning GPS: High precision roadway geometry, high accuracy six axis IMU integration, roadways grade and curvature
- Street level three D imagery: Scalable mobile mapping solution 360 degree street level spherical imagery pavement image scanning 3D LiDAR point cloud data virtual road map.
- Laser crack measuring system: using infrared thermography and high resolution digital cameras to scan the pavement to precisely measure and identify cracks safely at posted traffic speeds.
- Positioning DMI: measure precise speed and distance ties in location to all other
- Highway reflectometer system: real-time pavement marking retro reflectivity
- Laser measuring system: longitudinal profiles dual wheel path three scanning lasers macro texture mean profile depth (MPD) ASTM 1845
- Pavement Distress: 100 percent roadway coverage pavement distressed measure (i.e. fracking, potholes_ extent (how much) and severity (how bad)