The Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation has partnered with the Japanese tech company i-Probe for a pilot program to monitor road conditions on Oʻahu.
i-Probe uses car-mounted sensors to track road conditions like potholes and traffic. Real-time data will then be collected on a cloud-based map. HDOT will have an i-Probe inspection vehicle monitoring roadways on Oʻahu for the next year, with this customized passenger car will send highway information to the state.
HDOT does collect data for a biennial report, but i-Probe will alert the state of problems much earlier on.
“The i-Probe customized inspection vehicle will make it easy and unobtrusive to collect the rideability data that we report to the Federal Highways Administration,” HDOT Director Jade Butay said in a release. “We’re looking forward to testing and validating the data and the possibilities for improving the way we maintain state highways this opens up.”
i-Probe's Chief Strategy Officer Shinya Shimada said this pilot program is just a developing phase, and a nationwide rollout of the technology is expected for 2023. The technology is also used in Virginia and San Diego, where over 10,000 miles of roadway have been analyzed.
“This pilot represents an opportunity for our daily drives to feed straight back into a system for improvement,” Gov. David Ige said in a release. “Through the operation of the customized inspection vehicle, HDOT will be able to quickly gather information on the rideability of our roads in a way that was not possible even a couple of years ago.”
