Development of a Road Monitoring and Reporting System Based on Location-Based Services and Augmented-Reality Technologies

To provide a certain level of serviceability, road authorities need to perform appropriate and timely maintenance and rehabilitation (M&R) activities. However, the vast expanse and different deterioration properties of road systems greatly increase the complexity of M&R activities. Because of lack of funding and resources, it is almost impossible for road engineers to monitor every road and to promptly maintain and rehabilitate any defects that have been identified. Therefore, the monitoring and reporting of defects by the public are becoming indispensable. For several years, location-based services (LBSs) have been applied to mobile devices with mobile positioning functions to provide users with location-specific services. Augmented reality (AR) can support users in manipulating virtual objects in real environments. In this study, a road monitoring and reporting system (RMRS) is developed including a mobile RMRS (an Android application) on smartphones and a web-based RMRS by integrating LBS and AR technologies. By using LBS and AR technologies, the time and costs of M&R activities can be significantly decreased, because routes of M&R activities can be planned in advance and the neighboring defects can be instantly identified and processed, which conforms exactly to the current policies of the Public Oversight of Public Works Projects and Smooth Roads Project in Taiwan. By using field data from Ilan County in Taiwan and considering the indefinite delivery contract, different strategies for M&R operations derived from the mobile and web-based RMRSs are analyzed. The results are presented to demonstrate the system’s benefits, costs, and feasibility.