October 5, 2017
South Burnett Regional Council has added some high-tech equipment to its road maintenance infrastructure in a bid to speed up inspections of problem roads.
A camera which snaps a high-definition 1080p image every 10 metres has been mounted on to the roof of a council vehicle, along with a G Sensor to measure vibrations from bumps and potholes.
The whole unit is also GPS-enabled so the image and vibration location can be identified exactly on a map.
The system was developed by Shepherd Services, from Brisbane.
Company owner Darren Shepherd said he started to build it in 2012.
“There are other systems but they are much more expensive, and are used by people like Main Roads and are a lot more hungry in data,” Darren said.
In contrast, the data collected by the SBRC system can be downloaded onto a USB stick at the end of the day and easily transferred to Council’s computer system.
The South Burnett is the second region to adopt the system; it is also being used by Rockhampton City Council.
Darren said a strength of the system was that it was not “perception based”.
He said people checking roads can become tired, while the camera system just keeps on taking photos.
Council has a hierarchy of road inspections which determines how many times a year a certain road is inspected.
With the new camera, a check can be done more quickly, based on an inquiry from the public or a significant rain event.
The system, known as RACAS (“Road Asset Condition Assessment System”), has been in use by the SBRC since August but was demonstrated to Mayor Keith Campbell and councillors in Kingaroy on Wednesday.
