For the past five years, RoadAI has enhanced operational efficiency and delivered financial savings to the Pirkanmaa region through improved inventory and repair of pavement damage.
The challenge: Lack of real-time, first-hand data
Five years ago, the Pirkanmaa Centre for Economic Development, Transport, and the Environment (ELY Centre) sought to make road repair projects more efficient by adopting new operating models utilizing computer vision.
Previously, the ELY Centre relied on two contractor individuals who worked full-time as road inspectors. When road condition feedback arose, these inspectors drove to the site and photographed potential pavement damage. The images were stored in the third party's database.
A key challenge with this model was the lack of real-time, first-hand information on the condition of the road network. In addition, achieving consistency in classifying the severity of pavement damage was difficult since assessments relied on the subjective judgment of multiple surveyors. Continuous “case-by-case” site visits also proved costly in the long term.
The solution: Efficient road condition inventory with RoadAI
To obtain more real-time and reliable information on its road network, the ELY Centre adopted RoadAI to assist employees in road condition inventory and repair projects.
RoadAI operates seamlessly with just a smartphone. The phone is mounted on the vehicle's dashboard, where it captures HD video footage of the road as the user drives through the network. This footage is automatically uploaded to a cloud-based platform, processed using computer vision technology, and made available within hours via a web-based map interface.
Thanks to RoadAI, the ELY Centre can now monitor and plan pavement maintenance effectively without requiring additional on-site visits.
"We can now ‘travel’ around the district in less than a minute – and from our workstation – to check for road maintenance issues. Without RoadAI, it would have taken hours of driving.
Tomi Keisala, Maintenance Manager at the Pirkanmaa ELY Centre
Benefits: Systematic and reliable damage detection in near real time
With RoadAI, the Pirkanmaa ELY Centre has transitioned from a traditional contract model to a more efficient service agreement model, yielding financial savings and streamlined pavement repair operations.
Dedicated site visits to assess potential damage have been eliminated, as road conditions can now be reviewed instantly from the latest footage available at all times. This new approach saves both travel costs and working hours.
"We have also achieved consistency in classifying damage and identifying severity categories. RoadAI always identifies and classifies damage uniformly, whereas human surveyors might vary in their assessments.
Tomi Keisala, Maintenance Manager at the Pirkanmaa ELY Centre
Consistent damage detection enabled by computer vision has helped the ELY Centre maintain a safer road network for users. With RoadAI, even minor damages are easy to detect and repair before they worsen. This is critical, as repairing unnoticed minor damage can cost twice as much the following year once the damage expands.
Archived video footage also simplifies compensation agreements, as it allows the ELY Centre to retrieve precise records from the time of the incident.
Systematic severity classification and real-time road footage have further enabled preventive, long-term repair planning—a capability Keisala particularly values.
