Shoalhaven City Council uses AI to deliver safer roads to the community

After 14 declared natural disasters in just four years battered its roads, Shoalhaven City Council is using rubbish trucks and artificial intelligence to tackle its pothole issues and keep the community safe.

Partnering with TechnologyOne and Retina Visions, two Australia-made technology companies, the council placed cameras at the front of six recycle trucks to monitor road conditions. Footage from the cameras is scoured by artificial intelligence to identify potholes, road cracks or damage. The data is then triaged and sent on to the council's asset management solution to create a work order and workers sent out to fix the problem quickly.

Stephen Dunshea, CEO at Shoalhaven City Council said the smart solution is an answer to most council’s asset management pain points: low coverage, manual data entry, cost, data and reporting lag and time wasted inspecting individual defects.

“As multiple storms, floods, bushfires, and severe weather events hit the local government area between 2019 and 2022, Shoalhaven’s assets took a beating. We needed a solution to support field workers with the increasing demand and ensure safe roads for our community,” Mr Dunshea said.

“The solution detected 2,000 defects a week in the first six months, from potholes and overhanging branches to debris on the road, cracks in the footpaths, graffiti, broken or damaged street signs and line mark deterioration, all of which affect the safety of our roads.”

“The best part is, we did not need extra resources despite the sheer size of our road network and the amount of assets we manage.”

In just two weeks, 87% of Shoalhaven’s entire road network can be efficiently assessed for defects, with the council able to rectify a record 10,688 defects over just three months.

“With a staggering number of defects coming in from only six trucks, we relied on TechnologyOne’s Enterprise Asset Management solution to provide a rating on a scale from 0 to 10 to help our team of 76 field workers tend to the most urgent ones quicker,” Mr Dunshea said.

Thanks to TechnologyOne’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution, meaning it is accessible from any browser or any device using a browser, the triaged data from Retina Visions can be consumed directly into the TechnologyOne asset management system. The jobs created include location data, work instructions, maps, and photographs and once the defect has been tended to, the crew can close the job and include images of the completed work.

“As council, we want to ensure our 105,000 residents and visitors are provided with a quality environment, and that includes making sure our assets are up to scratch. TechnologyOne and Retina Visions allow us to monitor and maintain our road network, which is more than 1,700km, efficiently and effectively for the safety of the community," Mr Dunshea said.

TechnologyOne’s CEO, Ed Chung, said the Australian technology company has worked with councils for 36 years and understands the community focus that every local government has.

“It’s outstanding to see two homegrown tech companies with deep knowledge of how local governments work and a shared understanding of their priorities collaborate and innovate,” Mr Chung said.

“We understand that livability and community safety are at the top of the list for councils globally, which is why I’m so proud to see our asset management solution supporting Shoalhaven City Council’s recovery from recent natural disasters and deliver safer quality roads and assets to its residents and visitors.”