Unlocking high frequency time domain in roughness measurements.
Road roughness has been recognized by road operators and managers as a fundamental property for assessing the quality, and condition of road pavements. This measure was introduced by the world Bank in the 1980s as the “International Roughness Index” (IRI). Since then, decision makers have implemented it in their operations and processes to optimize maintenance strategies.
IRI is generally measured on primary road networks every 1 to 3 years, while the application of IRI for secondary roads and municipalities is generally limited. In fact, low frequency IRI measurements lack important information about the real road condition, and its evolution, in particular for urban roads.
NIRA Dynamics has overcome the limitations of traditional surveys by unlocking the high frequency time domain. Using IRI data supplied by connected cars, included in ROAD HEALTH, the road is measured continuously empowering road owners with the ability to understand the evolution of pavement condition at a very high resolution.
NIRA Dynamics recognizes time as the “new feature” in pavement engineering. IRI development provides a large variety of applications, for example:
- Corrective & preventive Maintenance: Nira’s roughness change alerts highlight locations which have undergone a substantial change in pavement condition.
- Short and long term IRI development rate: IRI development rate is used to identify potential problems with road bearing capacity.
- Key Performance Indexing: NIRA’s PCI characterizes pavement condition in a way which aligns with traditional PCI metrics. This allows an easy-to-understand metric to be used in maintenance planning.
- Predictive maintenance: Combining AI and NIRA’s high frequency roughness data makes it possible to predict future scenarios based on a given maintenance budget.
- Climate resilience: Integrating NIRA’s IRI and weather data (from NIRA’ vehicle fleet) allows the characterization of pavement climate resilience.
All these topics will be released into articles and discussed in the coming months on the Nira Channels.
Stay tuned!!!
