Photo credit:  Surrey County Council

Surrey County Council will use AI technology to detect potholes to help speed up road repairs across the county. 

Computer vision cameras fitted to dashboards inside highways vehicles will spot and photograph potholes which will then be automatically recorded for repair.  Highways Inspectors will no longer need to step onto the road to manually carry out inspections. 

Potholes that don’t need immediate attention will also be tracked regularly to ensure they are dealt with when needed.  Future enhancements will see other defects such as missing signs and foliage overgrowth also programmed for repair. 

Surrey is the first local authority in the UK to move away from manual inspections and solely use video and AI for this purpose.