As America’s deteriorating roadways continue to lag behind requisite remedial efforts, various municipalities and states are increasingly leveraging artificial intelligence to identify the most pressing hazards and prioritize necessary repairs.
In Hawaii, for instance, officials are distributing 1,000 dashboard cameras in an effort to combat an alarming increase in traffic-related fatalities.
These cameras employ AI technology to facilitate automated inspections of guardrails, road signage, and pavement markings, swiftly differentiating between trivial issues and urgent emergencies necessitating maintenance crews’ attention.
Richard Browning, chief commercial officer at Nextbase, which has engineered both the dashcams and the analytical platform for Hawaii, emphasized, “This is not a process reliant on infrequent evaluations followed by arbitrary planning for deployment of repair vehicles.”
In San Jose, California, the initiation of camera installations on street sweepers has yielded a significant milestone, with city staff reporting a 97% accuracy in identifying potholes. The city is now extending this technology to vehicles responsible for parking enforcement.
Texas, boasting a road network spanning more lane miles than the combined total of its two neighboring states, is just under a year into an extensive AI initiative that incorporates both cameras and volunteer cellphone data from motorists to enhance roadway safety.
Numerous other states are similarly embracing such technology to conduct street sign inspections and compile annual assessments of road congestion.
Daily Guardrail Monitoring
Residents in Hawaii can enroll in a complimentary dashcam, valued at $499, as part of the “Eyes on the Road” initiative launched a few weeks ago. This program, initially trialed on service vehicles in 2021, was temporarily suspended due to wildfires.
Roger Chen, an associate professor of engineering at the University of Hawaii, who is playing a pivotal role in orchestrating the program, noted the unique challenges Hawaii faces in managing its antiquated roadway infrastructure. “Logistical constraints necessitate that equipment must be transported to the islands, presenting both spatial and geographical challenges,” Chen conveyed.
While the initiative also addresses issues such as road debris and the deterioration of lane markings, the technology’s capability to identify compromised guardrails is particularly lauded.
“The analysis encompasses every guardrail in the state on a daily basis,” remarked Mark Pittman, CEO of Blyncsy, which integrates real-time feed from dashcams with mapping software for comprehensive road condition assessments.
Hawaii’s transportation authorities are acutely aware of the dangers associated with faulty guardrails. Notably, the state reached a $3.9 million settlement with the family of a motorist killed in 2020 when their vehicle collided with a guardrail that had sustained damage in an earlier incident but remained unrepaired for 18 months.
In October, Hawaii registered its 106th traffic fatality for 2025—surpassing the total for all of 2024. While the correlation between road conditions and these fatalities remains ambiguous, Chen emphasized that this distressing trend underscores the urgency of the dashboard initiative.
Enhancing AI Databases
San Jose has reported impressive initial success in detecting potholes and road debris through the deployment of cameras on street sweepers and parking enforcement vehicles.
However, Mayor Matt Mahan, who has a background in technology startups, asserts that the initiative would achieve greater efficacy if municipalities collaborated to contribute their imagery to a collective AI database. This would enable the AI to recognize recurring road issues, irrespective of their geographic occurrence.
“It can discern, ‘Ah, that is indeed a cardboard box lodged between those two parked cars; we classify that as debris on the roadway,’” noted Mahan. “We could afford to wait five years for such incidents to occur locally, or seize the advantage of having that information readily accessible.”
San Jose officials have been instrumental in establishing the GovAI Coalition, which debuted publicly in March 2024, allowing governments to exchange best practices and ultimately data. This collaboration includes local governments from California, Minnesota, Oregon, Texas, Washington, and the state of Colorado.
Simple Yet Effective Solutions
Not all initiatives aimed at enhancing road safety hinge exclusively on AI technologies involving cameras.
Cambridge Mobile Telematics, based in Massachusetts, has developed a system known as StreetVision, which utilizes cellphone data to pinpoint hazardous driving behavior. The company collaborates with state transportation departments to identify specific roadway conditions contributing to these dangers.
Ryan McMahon, senior vice president of strategy and corporate development for the company, recounted an incident while attending a conference in Washington, D.C., where the StreetVision software indicated a concerning spike in aggressive braking on a nearby thoroughfare. The culprit? A bush obscures a stop sign, leaving drivers unaware until the last moment.
“What we examine is the aggregation of such events,” McMahon explained. “This led me to recognize an infrastructure issue, and the remedy for this was simply a pair of garden shears.”
Officials in Texas have harnessed StreetVision alongside various other AI techniques to address safety challenges, having recently scanned 250,000 lane miles (402,000 kilometers) to locate outdated street signage in dire need of replacement.
“When signs installed a decade or more ago existed solely on paperwork orders, tracking them down within digital files could be a Herculean task,” stated Jim Markham, who analyzes crash data for the Texas Department of Transportation.
“AI serves as a crucial force multiplier, enabling us to cast a wider net and gather information far more expediently than relying on manual inspections.”
The Evolution Toward Autonomous Vehicles
Experts specializing in AI-driven road safety measures posit that current endeavors represent merely a precursor to a future wherein a significant portion of vehicles on the roads will be autonomous.
Pittman, the CEO of Blyncsy, who has contributed to the Hawaii dashcam project, anticipates that in the next eight years, nearly every newly manufactured vehicle—whether operated by humans or not—will be outfitted with a camera.
“We must consider how we perceive our roadways from the vantage point of a grandparent in a Buick, as well as from Elon Musk and his Tesla,” Pittman remarked.
“This distinction is crucial for transportation departments and municipal agencies, as they begin to construct infrastructure accommodating both human drivers and automated vehicles, necessitating efforts to bridge that divide.”
Source link: Wvua23.com.
