Ohio Transportation Department Partners with Honda for Road Condition Management Project

author: FutureCar Staff    

Honda, in partnership with i-Probe Inc., The University of Cincinnati, and Parsons Corporation, has been awarded over $700,000 by DriveOhio, the smart mobility hub of The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT), for a two-year research project. The project aims to develop a road condition management system that utilizes vehicle-generated data to identify and report hazardous road conditions in Ohio. Honda will lead the project, leveraging its previous research and the Honda Drive Data Service. The funding will cover the project work by the three partners.

The project has the potential to make roads safer and reduce vehicle damage costs for consumers. ODOT is responsible for a significant number of lane miles and bridges across the state, and by using vehicle-generated data, maintenance crews can quickly respond to roadway issues such as potholes and damaged guardrails. The data can also provide near real-time information to inspectors, reducing the need for time-consuming visual inspections.

The project builds upon a pilot program conducted by the Honda Research Institute in 2022, which evaluated a road condition management system using GPS coordinates and cameras to collect real-time road condition information. During the two-year project, Honda test vehicles equipped with Advanced Driver Assistive Systems (ADAS) will collect road condition data on select routes. This data will be analyzed and evaluated to pinpoint roadway damage and inform road maintenance operations in Ohio. The goal is to create an active road maintenance system that collects anonymized road hazard information for analysis and action by road maintenance crews.

The project partners will integrate their technologies with Honda test vehicles to collect and analyze data on roadway conditions such as striping deficiencies, pothole development, ride quality, guardrail and cable road barrier damage, road sign wear, and condition of berms. The data will be provided to ODOT through a web dashboard, which will enhance the machine learning algorithm used to generate the dashboards. ODOT will evaluate the long-term use of this data for maintenance and other operations.

Executive Director of DriveOhio, Preeti Choudhary, stated that integrating vehicle data into operations has the potential to improve efficiency and safety for Ohio drivers. Honda's Chief Engineer and Chief of Data Business, Sue Bai, believes that this initiative will revolutionize road infrastructure evaluation, management, and maintenance, contributing to Honda's goal of achieving zero traffic-collision fatalities by 2050. The other partner companies, i-Probe Inc., The University of Cincinnati, and Parsons, bring unique expertise in vehicle data analysis and infrastructure evaluation to the project.

Honda is committed to safety and has a global goal to achieve zero traffic collision fatalities involving Honda motorcycles and automobiles by 2050. The company has advanced passive safety features such as the Advanced Compatibility Engineering (ACE) body structure and next-generation airbag technology. They also have active safety and driver-assistive systems like Honda Sensing and AcuraWatch, which are designed to reduce the frequency and severity of collisions.

Overall, the project aims to leverage vehicle-generated data to improve road safety, reduce vehicle damage costs, and enhance the efficiency of road maintenance operations in Ohio.

FutureCar Staff