Local buses and garbage trucks could soon be fitted with technology that tracks and prioritises their own road repairs when Transport for NSW puts artificial intelligence (AI) to work across Greater Sydney.
Announcing it was to trial the AssestAI, Minister for Metropolitan Roads, Natalie Ward said the new tech could identify potholes before they formed and could also be combined with local weather observations to predict the rate of deterioration as well as streamline the way road asset maintenance was prioritised.
“It’s a brilliant use of resources already on our roads,” Mrs Ward said.
“Mounting cameras and sensors onto vehicles with regular routes, like garbage trucks and public transport buses, ensures road defects are captured incidentally, including those un-reported by residents,” she said.
“This AI technology assesses the captured footage and logs any road defects detected into a database in near-real time, meaning it will find potholes and cracks in the road before they find you.”
Mrs Ward said AssetAI was expected to be available to all NSW Local Government areas in late 2023.
Minister for Regional Transport and Roads, Sam Farraway said road data was also being collected outside the city, with a utility vehicle mounted with cameras scanning rural roads across regional NSW.
“A ute with the road scanning camera and user interface mounted is travelling across 100 kilometres of regional NSW roads to detect and report on road conditions,” Mr Farraway said.
“We will have it out collecting data along the Great Western Highway between Lithgow and Bathurst, the Sturt Highway near Wagga Wagga and around Spring Ridge in the Upper Hunter,” he said.
