A truck-based traffic speed deflectometer (TSD) unit that has the ability to see under the surface of highways and measure their strength will be employed by the New Zealand Transport Agency for an initial year of operation.
NZTA already has two trucks with technology mounted on them which provide information on roads and pavements.
The new TSD looks like an ordinary truck and semi-trailer unit but it contains a bank of computers, lasers, and cameras inside, which can identify cracks in the road, profile the surface and provide information about strength according to TV3 News.
More than 12,000 lane kilometres of data will be collected in the first 12 months of operation. The TSD technology was developed by ARRB, formerly the Australian Road Research Board, and its technicians will run the units technology and extrapolate the data while in New Zealand.
Promoters of the new truck-based TSD unit say it’s technology will reveal roads under stress before surface damage appears.
NZTA group manager highways and network operations Tommy Parker says that allocating road maintenance investment on the basis of need will allow NZTA to fix the greatest infrastructure issues impacting negatively on road safety.
More than 1000km of the state highway network was renewed in 2013/14 some 13% lower than what was originally targeted says NZTA’s annual report.
NZTA spent $1.8 billion on the state highway network in 2013/2014 an increase of 17.2% on the previous year. This covered new and improved infrastructure, renewal of existing infrastructure, maintenance and operations.
