Identification and assessment of distress on paved roads using UAV photogrammetry and GIS techniques: a case study of Lusanja Road
Abstract
Road Infrastructure Maintenance is important for paved roads in order to prevent deterioration of
their design life. Proper condition surveys are done before taking up the repair work and cost
estimation. The aim of this study is to assess road distresses namely; potholes and edge failures on
road surfaces which are the major road failures in Uganda, and mainly caused by water erosion. The
road distresses not only cause great damage to vehicles but also fatal road accidents. Therefore,
UAV-captured images of Lusanja road have been assessed to create GIS datasets containing key
information such as dimensional measurements, severity level, and location.
Today, the detection of distresses is based on citizen reports and inspection by vehicle or on foot,
making it subjective and expensive in which maintenance work for many road sections is delayed.
Recent research has explored the possibility of UAV inspection of paved roads to produce
photogrammetric data because of real time, cost effective, monitoring capabilities, flexibility and
ease of maneuverability. The methodology consists of four phases, namely site reconnaissance and
planning, UAV data acquisition, data processing and results analysis based on ground truth data of
distress samples using remote sensing and GIS techniques.
In conclusion, the proposed method of UAV provides a detailed and accurate measurement of road
distresses to improve the efficiency in conducting quick surveys and evaluating the paved roads
while requiring minimal funding used in cost optimization through budget estimation of repair
materials. The results from the study show good accuracy with both Traditional and UAV
measurements by producing statistically similar results.