A survey on state-of-the-art road surface monitoring techniques for intelligent transportation systems

Intelligent transportation systems (ITS) aims at maximizing convenience, safety, and efficiency of transportation system with help of advanced technologies while reducing investment in transportation infrastructure. With advancement of road network in all countries across the globe, road surface condition information has become a significant factor in preventing road accidents. In this paper, we present a survey of road surface monitoring techniques for ITS; that overcome the shortcomings of manual inspection methods and focus on detecting presence of road anomalies that can lead to accidents. The road surface monitoring techniques have been categorised based on the equipment used for data acquisition. The vision-based techniques are less expensive but are constrained by illumination conditions. Optical technology based techniques are highly accurate but exhibit high cost. However, smartphone-based techniques are ubiquitous and offer a low-cost solution for road surface monitoring. Finally, we conclude by presenting future research directions to improve the process of road surface monitoring.