Potholes Are Everywhere! But Are They Really?

One of the most interesting things about Big Data technologies is that it sometimes affords you the opportunity to directly reconcile your subjective experiences with a harsh data-driven reality.

As a seasoned driver (and naturally, an above-average driver… since everyone is an above average driver), I hate potholes and they always seem to be omnipresent. Every road you turn down, and every highway you take there is, seemingly, a pothole waiting for you.

But is this really true?

RoadBotics looks for potholes (and a lot of other road damage) in image data as we drive around government-maintained roads. We take that information and we provide to governments an accurate and machine-driven assessment of their entire road network so they can set a budget, make a plan, and perform repair work.

One interesting side effect of this is that we have literally millions of images of roads and their corresponding assessment of potholes.

Sadly, our subjective judgment is exceedingly wrong. Every image we have represents a 10 ft (3 meter) section of roadway. In looking at over 3 million of these images, we found less than 2,800 potholes. That represents approximately 5,681 miles of road (9,144 km).

So, effectively, there is one pothole for every 2 miles of roadway. That seems rather infrequent comparatively to our own anecdotal assessments.

Then what is happening?

First and most likely is just selective memory. I remember hitting a pothole but I am unlikely to remember the nice smooth stretches of road. [For those interested in the science behind selective memory, see availability heuristic.]

A second issue might be with the dataset itself and a sampling bias. Our data comes from forward-thinking communities interested in using the latest technologies to make government services better. Perhaps their roads are better than the average?

We will be sure to continue updating the statistics as we learn more. But it is always great to understand something about the physical nature of the world, even if it’s only to either confirm our pothole rage or to refute it.

Want to learn where all the potholes really are in your road network? Consider RoadWay with Individual Distress Identification

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