NEW DELHI: The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) will employ advanced equipment to capture and report road defects automatically without any human intervention to ensure hassle-free travel.
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways on Wednesday announced deployment of Network Survey Vehicles (NSV) in 23 states covering 20,933 km for the collection, processing, and analysing of road inventory and pavement condition data of stretches of the national highways.
The deployment of NSVs will enable NHAI to collect necessary data related to road inventory and pavement condition, including all relevant road defects like surface cracking, potholes and patches, said ministry officials.
The pavement condition surveys will be carried out using 3D laser-based NSV system capable of capturing and reporting road defects automatically without any human intervention, with the help of high-resolution 360-degree cameras, DGPS (Differential Global Positioning System), IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit), and DMI (Distance Measuring Indicator).
These are equipped with versatile data acquisition & processing software to accurately measure and report the inventory & pavement condition data.
“The data collected through NSV surveys will highlight deficiencies in road conditions, prompting NHAI to take corrective measures for better upkeep of National Highways… The data shall be collected for all projects involving 2, 4, 6 and 8 lanes with NSV before start of work and thereafter at regular intervals of six months. To implement this initiative, NHAI has invited bids from qualified companies,” said officials.
Data collected through the NSV survey will be uploaded on NHAI’s ‘AI-based portal Data Lake, where it will be analysed by a dedicated team of experts to transform data into knowledge and subsequent actionable insights. Finally, the data collected at regular intervals as per Government guidelines will be preserved for future technical purposes in the Road Asset Management system in prescribed formats.
“Network Survey Vehicle (NSV) System is a specialized infrastructure management tool comprising vehicles equipped with advanced sensors and data acquisition systems. These vehicles systematically collect data on road inventory and the condition of National Highways. The collected data is useful to make decisions for pavement maintenance, asset management, and infrastructure planning, contributing to enhancing the safety and efficiency of the National Highway Network across the country,” said the ministry.
