Pothole tracker on buses and taxis identifies roads for repair

POTHOLE trackers are being fitted to buses and taxis to identify which roads need fixing in a university trial.

Scientists, who are monitoring the shock waves that vehicles encounter to locate where potholes are getting worse, say taxis, buses and delivery vans using the same route every day could be fitted with the dashboard monitor to carry out road checks.

Trials have been carried out using taxis and buses operated by Transport for London, highway maintenance vehicles in Northern Ireland and delivery cars working for Bristol Community Meals, the BBC reported.

The technology, developed at the University of South Wales, collects data, using vibration levels, to record the profile of the road surface. The data highlight the state of roads using a red, amber and green code on a map.

Kevin Lee, managing director of Cardiff-based Mobilized Construction, said: “The key problem councils have is knowing exactly where new problems form. There is ongoing planned maintenance but that might not necessarily be where the roads are suffering the worst.

“If you don’t know where the problem is, how are you supposed to fix it? The benefit of our system is it records a problem as it is actually happening.”

Mr Lee has had support to develop the system from the university’s centre of excellence in mobile and emerging technologies. He said it solved three main problems: reduced safety; extra cost of repairs; and the environmental and time cost that road closures cause.

Recent figures in England show a pothole is discovered every 43 seconds, with nearly 700,000 reported last year. Councils spent £949million to fix them.