Measuring road roughness with a smartphone: horses for courses?

Roughness is a commonly collected pavement condition parameter used by road agencies, at the local, state and federal level, to assess the functional condition of their road networks. Numerous devices can be used to measure road roughness, however, due to technological differences and, in some cases, inherent operational limitations, not every device is capable of reporting the same roughness statistic to the same degree of accuracy. This may not be an issue for a road agency depending on how the agency intends to use the data. However, issues can occur if the roughness statistic reported by the device is inaccurate especially if it is reporting roughness in accord with an international standard such as the International Roughness Index (IRI). Today, the use of smartphone applications for measuring road roughness is gaining popularity due to their portability and ease of use. This paper aims to compare the performance of one such application against an inertial laser profiler and an accelerometer-based roughness meter. The devices were tested on both sealed and unsealed pavements in order to identify their strengths and weaknesses as one device might be suitable for one application, but not another, and vice versa.

• Record URL:
  http://arrbknowledge.com
• Authors:
  • Wix, R
• Conference:
  • ARRB Conference, 27th, 2016, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
• Publication Date: 2016-11

Language

• English

Media Info

• Pagination: 13p
• Monograph Title: Linking people, places and opportunities: 27th ARRB Conference, 16-18 November 2016, Melbourne, Victoria

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Accuracy; Cellular telephones; Data collection; Evaluation; Measurement; Profilometers; Roughness; Telephone; Texture; Types of roads by network
• Uncontrolled Terms: Road design and asset management; Road networks
• ATRI Terms: Accuracy; Evaluation; Measurement; Mobile phone; Profilometer; Road network; Roughness
• ITRD Terms: 9020: Evaluation (assessment)
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Materials; Planning and Forecasting; I61: Equipment and Maintenance Methods;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01622967
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: ARRB
• Files: ITRD, ATRI
• Created Date: Jan 24 2017 12:04PM