As the province transitions from winter to spring, the City of Victoria is purchasing an artificial intelligence app that can detect potholes and other road issues.
It began a six-month pilot program for an AI app called “CityROVER”, which captures images of potholes, road cracks, and things like downed street signs.
“(Last year) we filled two and a half thousand potholes,” said Phillip Belfontaine, Director of Public Works at the City of Victoria.
“It’s mounted to the windshield of our trucks and we use that as an automatic pothole detection system.”
The technology scans the road and collects real time data, which then maps out where the potholes are and colour codes them by priority level.
Bellefontaine said the app allows the city to respond to issues more effectively.
The app was developed by Visual Defence, a company based out of Ontario, but in just a few years the technology has made its way to municipalities of all sizes.
CityROVER says the technology has been deployed across the country as far west as Victoria and as far east as Newfoundland and Labrador, costing about $5,000 per year for each device.
“Instead of focusing on one or two citizen complaints they can start to see patterns, which areas in the city need the most attention, which deficiencies are the most urgent ones to take care of,” said CityROVER Chief Technology Officer.
According to the City of Victoria, the app has detected roughly 500 potholes since the pilot program began, and also spotting raised manholes and broken street signs.
279 kilometres of road are in the capital, so officials say the extra set of eyes goes a long way.
“It’s just another really valuable tool to help us get ahead of the game,” said Bellefontaine.
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