AI could stop potholes becoming a menace to motorists

The council is using Robotiz3d’s patent-pending ARRES EYE in the trial, which is placed on a roof rack at the back of a vehicle to scan road surfaces and identify potholes, cracks, and areas of weakness across the county’s road network.

Defect dimensions, location, and severity level are displayed on a remote screen in near real-time, helping highways engineers to plan road resurfacing programmes and pothole fixes more effectively. Hertfordshire County Council’s Highways engineers have been collaborating closely with scientists from Robotiz3d to help refine the technology, which started as a research project at Liverpool University in 2016.

After initial trials and testing on a short route in 2024, the ARRES Eye is now back in Hertfordshire for a long-term test.

The Eye will be used to survey a trial route multiple times over a period of several months using its laser technology to read the road surface and look for tiny changes as cracks widen in the cold and wet winter weather.