Identification and assessment of distress on paved roads using UAV photogrammetry and GIS techniques: a case study of Lusanja Road

Abstract

Road Infrastructure Maintenance is important for paved roads in order to prevent deterioration of their design life. Proper condition surveys are done before taking up the repair work and cost estimation. The aim of this study is to assess road distresses namely; potholes and edge failures on road surfaces which are the major road failures in Uganda, and mainly caused by water erosion. The road distresses not only cause great damage to vehicles but also fatal road accidents. Therefore, UAV-captured images of Lusanja road have been assessed to create GIS datasets containing key information such as dimensional measurements, severity level, and location. Today, the detection of distresses is based on citizen reports and inspection by vehicle or on foot, making it subjective and expensive in which maintenance work for many road sections is delayed. Recent research has explored the possibility of UAV inspection of paved roads to produce photogrammetric data because of real time, cost effective, monitoring capabilities, flexibility and ease of maneuverability. The methodology consists of four phases, namely site reconnaissance and planning, UAV data acquisition, data processing and results analysis based on ground truth data of distress samples using remote sensing and GIS techniques. In conclusion, the proposed method of UAV provides a detailed and accurate measurement of road distresses to improve the efficiency in conducting quick surveys and evaluating the paved roads while requiring minimal funding used in cost optimization through budget estimation of repair materials. The results from the study show good accuracy with both Traditional and UAV measurements by producing statistically similar results.