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No road safety without continuous monitoring of road assets

27.04.2023

While it is the driver's responsibility to follow the rules of the road as well as to maintain his vehicle properly, he is not the only one who must be concerned about road safety. Infrastructure managers are doing their part by monitoring the evolution of road assets over time to prevent any deterioration.

Every year-end since 2017, Iddrim (Institute of Roads, Streets, and Infrastructure for Mobility) publishes a report, the ONR (National Road Observatory) aiming in particular to enlighten decision-makers about the risk of degradation of road assets.

Based on an online collection of data from road network operators (national, departmental, inter-communal and communal), this observatory does not yet cover the entire network. Thus, in 2021, only 258 237* km of departmental network on 378 693* km, or 67% of the network for 68 departments on 101*, were analyzed. While uncontrolled sections or structures do not necessarily pose a risk to light-duty vehicle traffic today, they may also be warning signs of road deterioration: severe wear and tear of the coating, which can lead to cracks, which gradually lead to leakage defects, tearing off, deformation and deep structural defects.

In the long run, not only does the road become dangerous, but the cost of repairs (curative maintenance) is more onerous than work done for preventive maintenance.

Towards more security

In order to have a continuous analysis of the road heritage over time and to follow its evolution, Mobility by Colas has developed the ANAIS tool, a digital service promoting secure mobility through the optimized and preventive management of infrastructures, improvements that can alleviate user failures.

Complementary to the methods of preventive analysis and auscultation of the road network (SURE and ISRI), ANAIS uses these methods by enriching them through digital. In concrete terms, connected vehicles identify warning zones or near-accidents by transmitting their onboard data (and anonymised). ANAIS then allows to accompany the road manager on the relevance of the work carried out on the infrastructures and checking (through indicators) whether the safety of users improved after intervention on these warning zones. Through this continuous analysis of the pavement, ANAIS is helping to build a quality, reliable, sustainable and resilient infrastructure.

Sources: *ONR