A NSW council says artificial intelligence is identifying 2,000 cases of damage and hazards affecting local roads and footpaths a week.

 Shoalhaven City Council, on the state’s south coast, says its roads have taken a battering from natural disasters over the last four years, prompting it to launch the AI trial last year.

“As multiple storms, floods, bushfires, and severe weather events hit the local government area between 2019 and 2022, Shoalhaven’s assets were severely impacted,” Director of City Services Cary McIntyre said.

“We needed a solution to support field workers with the increasing demand and ensure safe roads for our community.”

The technology means that in just two weeks, 87 per cent of Shoalhaven’s entire 1,700km road network can be assessed for defects, with the council able to rectify a record 10,688 defects in just over three months.

The trial saw cameras mounted on six recycle trucks to record footage of local streets and roads, and the use of AI to scour the images for damage including cracks, potholes, graffiti, line mark deterioration, overhanging branches and debris, and damaged street signs.

The data was then triaged, ranked with a score of zero to ten, and sent to the council’s asset management team, enabling them to create work orders and  get their 76 field workers out to the most urgent jobs.

The software allows for location, work instructions, maps, and photographs to be recorded, and once the defect has been tended to, crews can close the job and include images of the completed work.

The technology is being provided by Australian tech companies TechnologyOne, which has a long history of supplying to local government, and Retina Visions.

Mr McIntyre says the system is helping the council fix road damage in an efficient and cost-effective way.

“The solution detected 2,000 defects a week in the first six months, from potholes and overhanging branches to debris on the road, cracks in the footpaths, graffiti, broken or damaged street signs and line mark deterioration, all of which affect the safety of our roads,” he said.

While the use of mounted cameras on council garbage trucks to monitor the condition of roads and streets has considerable benefits, it also raises issues around privacy, and the sort of data that’s being collected and potential misuse of that data.

Those issues are explored in a recent research paper, as reported by Government News.

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