Westwood joins 40 other municipalities using artificial intelligence to examine roads
It’s an effort by elected officials as a way to save money on manpower and to be sure that all decisions are objective.
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The borough of Westwood has started using artificial intelligence to determine if their roads need to be repaired or repaved.
It’s an effort by elected officials as a way to save money on manpower and to be sure that all decisions are objective.
Instead of relying on his own two eyes, the superintendent of Public Works is now allowing an app on his phone to record images of Westwood’s roads as he drives them.
Data on every pothole, faded striping and 13 other types of road defects are collected by the app.
The road management app is from a New Jersey company called Vialytics.
Westwood is one of 40 municipalities in the state to use the software, which also rates road quality and provides easy to use data.
“Now you’re relying on the facts here not just my opinion of the street. It’s helped me a lot already. A lot of times you’ll have residents who just want their street paved. Now I can go back to people and say there’s nothing wrong with your street that it needs to be repaved,” said Rick Woods, superintendent of Public Works.
Superintendent Woods says he can even create work orders from the road as soon as a defect is detected.
Borough officials believe the Vialytics app will pay for itself in manpower and offer elected officials objective data when determining how to use taxpayer dollars for roads.
