Road Inspections: Some things never change, until now!

Abstract

Western Downs Regional Council in South West Queensland manages a massive 7000km road network and stewards over 1800km of road network for the Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR) under its Road Maintenance Performance Contract (RMPC). With reactive subgrades, ever increasing traffic loads associated with mining and agricultural sectors, and limited budgets the State controlled road network in the Western Downs Region provides an ever increasing challenge to manage. Under the RMPC Council is required to undertake monthly inspections to identify and record defects to add to the backlog of works that are then prioritised for rectification. Like many Council’s Civica’s REFLECT application is the tool of choice to manage the RMPC process from inspection to completion. Until recently this required RMPC inspectors to be constantly stopping and recording defects and often would also involve the inspectors going on foot within the carriageway to undertake measuring duties, capturing detail while putting themselves at risk. With increasing traffic volumes on their relatively high-speed roads Council was highly motivated to find a solution that would make this process safer for its employees. Leveraging of the positive working relationship with SHEPHERD that was developed through the excellence award winning Roads Alliance Research Project: Using Artificial Intelligence for Road Maintenance Management Western Downs Regional Council and SHEPHERD have developed the Road Asset Condition Assessment System (RACAS) further to enable safe and efficient capture of road defects and have the defects loaded into REFLECT for assessment and prioritisation from the safety and comfort of the desktop. This approach enables the capture to be undertaken from the safety of the vehicle at highway speeds. While there is still work to do in terms of assessing defect depth, the team are confident that further development of technology and adjustments to process can overcome this challenge. The technology also enables Council to have the field inspection undertaken by a less experienced resource and provides efficiencies for the more experienced resources when undertaking the desktop work. SHEPHERD has also automated the integration of RACAS and REFLECT to allow the RMPC backlog to notify the inspector of defects that have already been recoded and to close out defects that have been completed. A GIS desktop review portal also enables RACAS data to be used to assist Council to manage the REFLECT backlog, a task that has historically been difficult and time consuming. Safety of the inspectors and all road users is the main winner here however the efficiency gains, transparency and increased data all point towards a better managed road network. Council and SHEPHERD are continuing to develop these tools with a focus on safety, efficiency and integration and see significant potential to use this data for other asset and works management projects such as condition assessments, asset valuations and DRFA assessments. This paper will explore the learnings and outcomes of the project which will be of interest to all road managers.