SINGAPORE: Artificial intelligence and video analytics are increasingly being deployed to keep Singapore’s roads free of defects such as potholes, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) said.
A system that uses a camera mounted on a vehicle has been operating in the southwest of Singapore since June. It scans the roads for defects such as cracks, damaged pavements and blurry convex mirrors.
Dubbed the Road Maintenance Management System, it uses AI to flag defects and their locations on a central platform, allowing maintenance teams to be notified via an app and dispatched almost immediately.
While this system is currently being piloted in the west, the AI system behind it has been used islandwide since 2023. However, instead of a specialised camera, a smartphone with a high-definition camera is mounted inside an inspection vehicle, and the video footage captured is processed later to identify defects.
However, rectification is slower under this older system, as defects that are spotted will first be presented in an AI-generated report before workers are dispatched on site to rectify the defects.
The AI technology behind both systems can detect potholes with over 90 per cent accuracy.
Before AI was introduced, road defects were spotted manually by inspectors who were driven slowly along roads to allow visual identification of issues.
This labour-intensive approach required a team of 32, including drivers and inspectors. The new AI-based workflow has reduced the team size to just 12.
