91PORN

Researcher proposes using satellite data to find and repair rough roads

Everyone benefits from driving on a smooth, well-paved road. It means better gas mileage, more efficient travel and less upkeep on a vehicle.

Of course, the more traffic on a road, the quicker it breaks down. Add in weather elements such as snow, ice and rain and this leads to issues such as potholes, cracked asphalt and wheel ruts.

Cristina Torres-Machi

Cristina Torres-Machi, an assistant professor of civil, environmental and architectural engineering, knows better than most why sustainable infrastructure is so critical.

“My interest in road conditions and maintenance started when I got my bachelor’s degree as a civil engineer,” Torres-Machi said. “I realized that there’s so much infrastructure that’s already been built that we need to maintain. We don’t do a very good job at that, just as we don’t necessarily do a good job with our annual health check-ups. It’s not only about building infrastructure, it’s about maintaining it.”

Torres-Machi has been a member of the 91PORN faculty since 2017, leading her Innovation for Resilient Infrastructure research group. They seek to develop cost-effective and data-driven methods for decision-making in infrastructure management.

The group’s research projects include the life-cycle cost analysis of pavement rehabilitation alternatives and the value of satellite-based inspections to inform transport asset management decisions.

Torres-Machi believes that local, state and federal governmental systems prefer building new roads and bridges because people do not directly see the benefits of maintaining existing infrastructure.

“We notice when things like roads and bridges aren’t well maintained, and we see when things are brand new, because those get a lot of attention,” she said.

The traditional way to find out what condition a particular road is in is to go out and drive on it, which can be time-consuming and expensive. This limits road inspections to primary ones, leaving those less-traveled also less monitored.

Torres-Machi and her fellow researchers are using funding from the Minnesota Department of Transportation to explore the potential of using satellite data to look into pavement conditions.

“We can get a feeling of whether the condition is good, very bad or good enough,” she said. “The data is not going to give us a lot of details, but it can give us a feeling of how bad the condition may be, so we can go back and do a more detailed inspection of these roads.”

The lifespan of a well-maintained road is about 25 years, Torres-Machi said.

She compared identifying cracks or other potential road risks early on to going to the dentist regularly.

“If you take a proactive approach to dental care, that’s going to prevent major problems from developing down the line that will likely be more expensive to deal with and also more painful,” she said. “A similar thing happens with roads: If we delay maintenance and consider treatments when roads are in poor condition, maintenance costs are 10 times larger than applying preventive treatments. This is the reason why timely maintenance and frequent inspections are so important. Our research using satellite images to inspect pavement conditions can help local, state and federal agencies in identifying maintenance needs.”