Published May 18, 2023 at 6:33 PM ET
A pothole is seen in Windsor, Ontario. May 18, 2023. (Sanjay/Maru/CTV News Windsor)
Potholes continue to be a nuisance for drivers in Windsor, Ontario. The city hopes artificial intelligence will be the key to finding them more efficiently and filling them sooner.
The city’s maintenance department shares three artificial intelligence devices developed by CityROVER. These were approved as a pilot project in his 2019 and operational in 2020.
The device works similarly to a dash cam, but works by physically attaching it to the back of your smartphone.
There is no need to manually identify potholes on the road when maintenance workers find them, and when drivers approach the potholes, the camera automatically captures the size and position of the potholes.
From there, Nguy can see all potholes entering the system from his office on Crawford Street and dispatch workers if necessary.
“What is an emergency? [gets priority]”Obviously, that’s where potholes can cause damage to the vehicle,” Gui said, adding, “But for smaller potholes, they’re marked on the map and then workers are able to inspect the area.” will be sent to take care of the
Gui said pothole workers began using GPS technology in 2010 to manually push buttons to locate potholes.
“Even so, it’s very limited. There’s a lot of human intervention,” Gui said, adding that another problem with using GPS is distracted driving. “You can’t operate a vehicle and a device at the same time, so we stopped doing that.”
The AI technology has the ability to “collect data on its own,” Gui said. Check out the device in action in the video below.
Gui said he hopes to have at least three AI virtual pothole assistants in the future.
The City of Windsor was also recognized for its use of this technology this week, with operations winning the 2023 EA Danby Excellence Award for Excellence in City Government.
