Technical Paper

UPGRADED ROAD CONDITION EVALUATION EQUIPMENT

YC Tewari1 Renu Chadha2 RP Saini3

ABSTRACT
Road Pavement condition evaluation data is an important input to the pavement management
system. Manual measurement of road distress data is not only time consuming, it is also not
practicable on road with high traffic densities. This paper describes Road Condition Evaluation
Equipment developed at CRRI. The equipment is useful for expeditious and accurate measurement
of road distress without disturbing the traffic. In the road condition evaluation survey system
surface distress data is collected while moving on the road at normal traffic speed. In the field
video images of the road are recorded by two firewire video camera mounted with its axis vertical
to an adjustable frame fixed at the top of the Tata Sumo van. It covers a maximum of 3.5 m road
width at a time thereby providing video-record of one lane width. Two additional cameras are used
for recording the road asset. The videographic images can be processed further, through specially
developed software, to generate a variety of reports in tabular, graphical and histogram formats
for use in pavement maintenance, planning and management systems.

1. Introduction figure, measurement of which are taken to calculate

Most of our arterial roads have developed large
traffic volumes and heavy traffic loads. Continuation
of trend towards further increase in traffic in the
future is inevitable. It has become essential to
develop and implement pavement management
systems in the country, with the objective of
keeping the road pavement continuously at the
optimum or near-optimum condition for safe and
speedy travel at the minimum feasible unit total-
cost of transportation. Road surface condition
evaluation, involving measurement of areas of
surface disintegration is an important input to
pavement management system. Road Condition
Evaluation involves measurement of areas of
surface disintegration in terms of extent or
percentage of the total area exhibiting cracking,
pothole, patchwork and raveling. Conventionally,
this is done manually by trained field teams, each
individual distressed area is marked on the road
with chalk, enclosing it inside a regular geometrical
1, 2 & 3
Scientists, TSD Division, CSIR-Central Road Research Institute, Delhi-Mathura Road, N. Delhi-110025
the area1. This method is not only time consuming,
but also not practical on roads with high traffic
intensities.
Vehicle mounted videographic equipment
for photographing the road surface condition
expeditiously and carrying out measurements on
the video-images so recorded in the office, either
manually or through computer analysis have been
developed abroad to overcome this problem.
No such equipment is, however, available
indigenously in India. For normal regular use with
pavement management systems being developed
and adopted in India, progressive indigenization
of such road condition evaluation equipment
based on appropriate expeditious technology and
utilizing, as much as possible, the technology
already indigenized, becomes important.
CRRI has designed and fabricated an upgraded
Road Condition Evaluation Equipment. Road
Condition Evaluation involves measurement of

INDIAN HIGHWAYS ⁄ October 2017 31

 Technical Paper

areas of surface disintegration in terms of extent The cameras are Imagingsource make, model no.
or percentage of the total area exhibiting cracking, DFK 41BF02 having pixel matrix 1280 X 960,
pothole, patchwork and raveling. Conventionally, CCD chip Sony ICX205AK and input trigger. The
this is done manually by trained field teams, each cameras are secured to the top of the vehicle through
individual distressed area is marked on the road a rigid camera-holding frame projecting from the
with chalk, enclosing it inside a regular geometrical back of the vehicle. The pavement cameras cover
figure, measurement of which are taken to calculate one lane width. The shaft encoder for measuring
the area. This method is not only time consuming, distance and speed of the vehicle is fitted on the
but also not practical on roads with high traffic rear wheel. The encoder is HANYONG make,
intensities. model no. HE40B having 50 pulses per revolution
In the earlier developed system road condition and 12 V dc input. Outside view of the system is
evaluation system in CRRI, video image of the road shown in Fig. 1. Distance Measuring device fitted
were recorded by an analog video camera covering in the rear wheel is shown in Fig. 2.
a max. of 2 m. road width (approx. half lane width)2.
In the upgraded system analog camera have been
replaced by high resolution firewire camera having
capability of covering entire lane width.
In the earlier system Pentium-I laptop and PC were
used. These have been replaced by an Industrial
PC. Two additional cameras are used for recording
the front view. Firewire cameras are used and these
cameras are triggered by distance pulses. Two
pavement cameras are triggered, when length of
one frame has been covered by the van. If the length
covered by one frame of the camera is two meter, Fig. 1 View of Road Condition Evaluation System
Fitted in Tata Sumo
the cameras are triggered at every 2 m distance
traveled. With this technique recorded frames
cover the entire length without overlapping. In the
upgraded system unique frames are stored directly
in the computer memory and thereby saving a lot of
time in generating unique frame from the recorded
images as in the earlier system.
2. Components of Road Condition
Evaluation System
The Road Condition Evaluation Equipment consists
essentially of two vehicle-mounted pavement
view cameras capable of video graphing the road Fig. 2 Distance Measuring Device Fitted in the
surface, with adequate sensitivity to pick up all Rear Wheel
required details and capable of being controlled and
The video output of the pavement cameras is fed
monitored from inside the moving vehicle. It also
through a conventional video interface card to
consists of two front asset view cameras. Distance
the PC. PC is also connected to receive a digital
travelled and speed of the vehicle is measured by
input from a distance measuring unit through
DMI (Distance Measuring Instrument) fitted in the
micro controller and serial port adapter. Video
rear wheel of the vehicle.
and distance data is integrated and analysed in
The Video Survey Vehicle is a Tata Sumo the PC.The Video Analysis System utilizes the
(Length = 4285 mm, Width = 1726 mm, Height = output of the Video Survey System as its input,
1976 mm, Wheel Base = 2425 mm) carrying on its and gives as output the processed and analysed
top two pavement cameras and two asset cameras. information on pavement surface condition

32 INDIAN HIGHWAYS ⁄ October 2017

 Technical Paper
of the road sections studied, in a format directly
utilizable for pavement maintenance management
Fig. 3 Block Diagram of the System.
3. Data Collection and analysis
To test the working of the system Video survey
vehicle was run over the 900 m section. Before
taking actual measurements, length and width of
road section covered by camera were measured.
Start and end point of the road section to be
surveyed were marked. The vehicle was run at a
constant speed and when vehicle reaches at start
point, section name and section no. were entered
and after that start button was pressed. The
encoder pulses are counted in data capture unit and
continuously compared with the three counts i.e.
preset length, Pavement capture and Asset capture.
On receiving the trigger signal video frames are
stored in the corresponding camera directories.
Simultaneously the data is shown on screen with
video frames from selected cameras (Fig. 4).
Fig. 4 Video Frames Recorded from Selected Cameras
This software system RODAS (Road distress
Analysis System) is designed and developed to
INDIAN HIGHWAYS ⁄ October 2017 33
planning. Block diagram of the system is shown
in Fig 3.
determine the condition of the road in a scientific
way3. In a road pavement surface there are various
types of damage such as crack, pothole, patch,
raveling. The application is designed considering
that there are many Roads in a project. The project
is the main feature of the application. There are
various Roads that are stored in a project. A
road consists of different sections. The survey is
section-wise because a road generally consists of
many sections. If the total survey of the road is
done at one stretch then the road will consist of one
single section. A section also covers information
regarding width and length of per image captured
by the camera. These information are important
for mathematical calculations in selected images,
processing the image and calculating damages.
The database will record number of individual
damages and summation of the area affected by
those damages.
For analysis, the type of damages are identified
and marked through mouse. The RODAS
software calculates the damaged areas marked
through mouse and generates reports in tabular
and graphical format depicting individual type of
distress and total area affected by the four types
of distress. The database will record Number of
individual damages and summation of the area
affected by those damages are recorded in the
database. The final reports in tabular and graphical
form scan be generated by processing these data
from the Database. Reports in graphical form are
shown in Fig. 5 & 6.
 Technical Paper

the surveying standard of road but also give more

accurate information. For good quality of images,
it must be ensured that light condition is good.
Table 1 Manually Measured Distress vs Distress
Obtained From the System
Section Distress Distress
No. Measured by the Measured
System (m2) Manually (m2)
1 0.7 0.8
2 23.0 25.5
3 0.3 0.3
Fig. 5 Graphical Representation of 4 3.3 3.5
Road Damage Status Area wise
5 10.1 11.7
6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors are thankful to Director, Central
Road Research Institute for his kind permission to
publish this paper.

Fig. 6 Graphical Representation of Road Damage

Status Percentage wise

4. VALIDATION OF ROAD CONDITION Fig. 7 Distress Measured by the Equipment vs

EVALUATION EQUIPMENT Distress Measured Manually

For validation of Road Condition Evaluation REFERENCES

system data was collected manually as well as
with the video survey system at five sections of
100 m length (Table 1). Graphs plotted between
manually measured distress and distress obtained
from the system is shown in Fig. 7. It is clear that
the distress measured with the system is in close
agreement with the distress measured manually.
5. CONCLUSION
The Road Condition Evaluation Equipment
has been developed for measurement of road
condition. This equipment will not only improve
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Pavement Deterioration models for Indian
Conditions, Journal Indian Roads Congress,
44-2(1997) 481-528.
2. Tewari YC, Chadha Renu, Saini RP, Kapoor
KJS & Rao PSK M, Road Surface
Condition Evaluation Equipment for Pavement
Management System, Journal Indian Road
Congress, 67-1 (2006) 115- 120.
3. Tewari YC & Chadha Renu, Road Surface
Distress Evaluation by Image Processing , Proc
Conf Control Instrumentation System (Manipal
Institute of Technology, Manipal) (2006) 46-48.

34 INDIAN HIGHWAYS ⁄ October 2017