Heat, cold, heavy trucks—Dresden wants to use sensors to measure how these factors affect its roads. To this end, the state capital is installing measuring beams in the asphalt at five locations around the city center. Other municipalities are also set to benefit from the data.
Until now, the condition of the roads has primarily been assessed based on cracks and ruts. The city wants to prevent such damage from occurring. By the time it appears, it’s actually already too late, said Peter Lebelt from the technical inspection department at the Road and Civil Engineering Office. The data collected by the sensors will be used to predict how quickly the road is deteriorating, so that action can be taken before cracks appear, if possible. The software being developed for this purpose will be open source and thus freely available—including to other municipalities.
