from the sometimes-the-obvious-things-are-overlooked dept.
Sydney rubbish trucks and buses detecting potholes before they form:
Potholes are among the daily pitfalls plaguing Sydney drivers and for the first time the dangerous and costly hazards are being mapped in real time. New technology installed on buses and rubbish trucks is detecting cracks - and stopping potholes in their tracks. Cameras have been fitted on rubbish trucks and motion sensors on buses to map Sydney's damaged roads.
Customer Services Minister Victor Dominello said the vehicles were an "obvious" choice for the new technology."Garbage trucks travel on every road, buses travel on every major road - combining both of them to identify potholes is the obvious way forward," he said. More than 30 Transport for NSW buses are testing the technology in a three-month trial [...].
[...] With Sydney's intense rain recently, there's plenty of damage.
"The idea of the trial is to try and detect the road condition before it gets worse, so we can have predictive maintenance and so the council crews can go out there and fix it," [Transport Minister] Knox, said.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by hendrikboom on Tuesday July 12 2022, @10:20PM
A few decades ago, a car encountered a pothole in Montreal on the Decarie Expressway service road. But instead of just having a big bump as it drove over it, the pothole sides crumbled and the entire car fell into the pothole.
It took an emergency intervention to get the driver (and the car) out. Both were somewhat worse for wear. Of course that bit of road got closed and repaired.
But then the city realised they had to be a bit more proactive -- evidently the underground area under that pothole had become a small cave, with an ensuing cave-in.
They got some kind of ground-penetrating sensor (maybe radar? sonar?) and put it on a truck. That truck was then used to drive along all Montreal streets in a regular pattern to detect future potential cave-ins so they could be dealt with proactively.
Looks like Sidney is doing something similar, but many times over. It should work. If the garbage trucks really go *everywhere* and not just along designated streets and lanes where people put their garbage.
(Areas with back lanes might well have their garbage put out on the back lane instead of in the street in front, so the street might not get checked for waiting disasters)
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday July 12 2022, @10:29PM (7 children)
Who could also benefit from pothole repair [vice.com] (title is likely NSFW).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 12 2022, @11:57PM (6 children)
We do something easier here, no special equipment required -- see a pothole, call the hotline and report it.
Last year I reported a pothole to the local bicycle/pedestrian coordinator for the NY Dept of Transportation (it was a state road). It was fixed in a couple of weeks.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 13 2022, @03:21AM (3 children)
You should try Chicago some time. Truck driving days, there was a pothole at one of the interstate off-ramps. People mostly slowed ridiculously, dangerously even, because of it. The city or state came out, and covered the pothole with a huge steel plate, which was a great improvement. I came off the ramp late one night, and I saw that the steel plate had been moved, but didn't have time to slow as much as I wanted to. Two broken springs, on the driver's side, and I had to wait for a service truck to come out. I mean - you simply can't drive around Chicago, or anywhere, with the truck listing 25 degrees to port.
Next trip to Chicago, the steel plate was back in place, with a bunch of bolts through it, and it stayed that way for a year or more.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday July 13 2022, @03:53AM (1 child)
Better bolts than glue [nytimes.com], I guess.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 13 2022, @12:29PM
Uggh.
In my experience, no epoxy would ever be considered for such an application. We would have embedded steel plates into the bottom of the concrete, and ceiling supports would have been welded to the plates. I guess that's the difference between industrial construction, and government construction.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 13 2022, @06:49PM
I have tried Chicago, in recent years I normally use the first ring road, I-294 to stay away from the Loop/downtown.
Years ago there were other ways through. To a greater or lesser extent the roads are always beat up.
> with the truck listing 25 degrees to port.
Maybe that was your silly looking truck I saw there once! Now I know what caused it.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday July 13 2022, @03:42AM (1 child)
You can also:
Clicking 'share the link' will generate a shortened google maps link that should reproduce the Maps location exactly (you can check by then opening it in an incognito tab). Then if you write up your report with e.g., cross streets and add the link to it and save a copy for yourself, if they *don't* get around to fixing it, you can send it to your friends and bump it up the chain until you get bored or are happy with the results.
You can also try it with worn-out paint on turn lanes, or any road maintenance issues, really. If multiple people in an office can actually see the issue, it might stick a little more clearly in their minds for repair.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Wednesday July 13 2022, @06:55AM
And the workers will come out and simply tar exactly that spot. There are possibilities here, it's a cheap way to have your own driveway fixed, but there are also pranks around the corner.