Surrey to use AI to detect potholes on the county's roads

A stock image of a pothole
-Credit:Gareth Fuller/PA Wire


Surrey will be the first area in the UK to get rid of manual inspections in favour of solely using video and AI technology to record potholes and schedule repairs. This comes as part of a nearly £300 million fund allocated to improve the condition of our county's roads and pavements by 2028.

In 2023, the RAC released data which stated Surrey County Council had seen the highest increase in pothole compensation claims compared to 18 other councils. This rose from 734 in 2022 to 3,418 in 2023, which was an more than 400 per cent increase in the space of a year. While this data does not equate to the number of potholes a county has on its roads, this would suggest many road users have been affected by potholes in Surrey.

Thanks to AI, the process of detecting and repairing Surrey's potholes should be a much speedier process. As part of this new initiative, which has been provided by Route Reports; Surrey Highways' vehicles will be fitted with computer vision cameras to their dashboards which will spot and photograph potholes to then be automatically recorded for repair.

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In theory, the incorporation of AI will mean highways inspectors will no longer need to get out of their cars and step onto the road to manually carry out inspections. This should make the process safer and more efficient.

Computer vision cameras fitted to dashboards inside will spot and photograph potholes which will then be recorded for repair
Computer vision cameras fitted to dashboards inside will spot and photograph potholes which will then be recorded for repair -Credit:Surrey County Council

Matt Furniss, Surrey County Council's Cabinet Member for Highways, Transport and Economic Growth, said: "Adopting this technology will mean we can proactively log and fix potholes, helping to ensure we have well-maintained roads across the county for our residents.

"We have some of the country’s busiest roads and we’re working incredibly hard to improve them, with nearly £300m allocated to repairing and improving Surrey’s roads and pavements over the next five years (2023 – 2028)."

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The council has said it plans to expand its usage of AI on Surrey's roads with the help of Route Reports; there are also plans to use the technology to detect defects such as missing signs and foliage overgrowth.

But, for now, Surrey Highways is working overtime to improve the quality of the countyt's roads and pavements. According to Cllr Furniss 100 miles of roads and 30 miles of pavements have been resurfaced by repair teams from April to December 2024 alone.