No matter your jurisdiction, maintaining adequate pavement conditions is among the most arduous tasks. Weather events and simple wear and tear can lead to deterioration resulting in potholes, creating inconveniences and annoyances for drivers and the transportation agencies responsible for maintaining the roads.
But these inadequate pavement conditions are more than just annoying. Worse, they can become extremely costly, for motorists managing the consequences and the agencies trying to find and fix them.
Bad pavement conditions lead to increased vehicle maintenance expenses for drivers. The potential for injuries increases, especially for pedestrians and cyclists, further increasing tangible and intangible costs. Businesses and commuters begin to experience disruptions, while bad road conditions can reduce property values.
Examining these and other hidden costs is vital to understanding the importance of proper pavement management. This, of course, can come with its hidden expenses. However, the necessary comprehensive pavement condition assessments are traditionally expensive. This calls for new means of inspecting the roads and finding the fixes before they get too costly. A proactive approach is the only way to manage the hidden costs of poor pavement conditions.
The Real Costs of Poor Pavement Conditions
Failed pavement is an avoidable expense for everyone directly or indirectly involved in using or managing it. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, poor road conditions cause American car, truck, and motorcycle drivers to spend a collective $130 billion more than they would otherwise on additional vehicle repairs and fuel costs.
With about 240 million Americans on the road, that’s more than $500 per year for every motorist. Pothole damage alone accounts for more than $26 billion of those costs.
That number, of course, does not consider the potential for accidents and injuries that incur significant financial and personal tolls. According to one study, poor pavement conditions such as potholes, a lack of necessary pavement markings, or cracked asphalt contribute to nearly one-third of all car accidents. With the average damages awarded in car accident lawsuits surpassing $20,000, these costs are anything but minor.
The Role of Intangible Expenses
Intangible expenses also play a central role in estimating the hidden costs of poor pavement conditions. Consider, for example:
- Failed pavement and necessary repairs will cause delays and disruptions for commuters and local businesses. This results in lost productivity, which is difficult to estimate but can still be impactful.
- Neighborhoods with roads exhibiting poor pavement conditions tend to be considered less favorably by realtors and homebuyers. As one realtor put it: “It’s off-putting to have such bumpy roads when someone has just come into town… I think they are surprised when they come in from other areas.”
Finally, neglected roads will become significantly more expensive to repair as the damage increases exponentially down the road. A small pothole left alone, can quickly grow and affect the sublayer of the road, requiring the entire section of the road to be removed and rebuilt. What otherwise may have cost about $1,000 per pothole now becomes an expense of up to $1 million per mile of road.
These hidden costs are the main reason why taking preventative maintenance action on roadways becomes a crucial endeavor. But of course, traditional ways of finding these areas to fix can become a large expense in its own right, adding to the complications.
The High Cost of Finding Poor Pavement Conditions to Fix
Given the extensive costs outlined above, working toward better road conditions seems like a natural solution. Unfortunately, traditional means of finding failed pavement to fix on a comprehensive level can bring challenges.
Consider, for example, the cost of sending crews to look for potholes and other issues manually. Each survey will likely take a few days of staff time, all paid, while still risking missing some of the conditions.
To circumvent this financial and human resource cost, some transportation agencies choose to hire outside consultants instead. For example, the city of Fargo hires an outside consultant to conduct a pavement condition survey every four years, with the next survey scheduled for later this year. The consultant’s report is comprehensive, evaluating 10 million square yards of pavement. However, it’s easy to imagine the expense this consulting engagement may require.
Yet another alternative is operating websites that rely on your residents to report pavement issues. The State of Pennsylvania operates such a website, encouraging motorists and pedestrians to call 1-800-FIX-ROAD to report potholes and issues with line markings. But this method is almost necessarily incomplete, while also requiring maintenance costs for the website and human resources on an ongoing basis.
And then there is LiDAR scanning in road maintenance. This leverages radar technology for more comprehensive surveying that is innovative and expensive. Drone-based LiDAR scanning, for example, can easily cost up to $12,000 per day.
Finding Alternative Ways to Uncover Failed Pavement Areas
Poor pavement conditions come with hidden costs that can easily skyrocket in expected and unexpected ways. But at the same time, traditional means of finding these issues come with expenses. That, in turn, can make strategic asset management difficult in this arena, resulting in inaction that only hits budgets harder.
Take, for example, the ability to perform a visual inspection of pavement surfaces through crowdsourced dash camera imagery and AI algorithms. The right system can automatically detect issues from cracks to potholes and faded markings, providing a dynamic report of where potential problems appear and where the fix becomes most urgent.
Because this technology taps into already-available camera footage, no manual surveys or external contractors will be necessary. It can also be comprehensive, evaluating every road within your pre-defined area. The result: significant cost savings compared to traditional means of surveying, with the resulting savings potentially becoming useful for earlier fixes before the issue becomes more expensive.
Through automated systems like this, transportation agencies can maintain their roads better while lowering overall costs. The ultimate result: better roadways that benefit everyone involved. Learn about Blyncsy’s pavement solution, and schedule your demo to see its functionality in action.
