Unlocking the potential of artificial intelligence for America’s infrastructure

Since celebrating Infrastructure Week in May, the conversation around infrastructure development has taken on a new dimension—one that goes beyond bridges and highways: harnessing the transformative power of artificial intelligence (AI) to propel our infrastructure into the future.

AI serves as a catalyst for productivity in a sector often burdened by resource constraints and historical backlogs, providing a pathway to enhanced efficiency. While AI-enabled technologies have been in use for almost 30 years in the infrastructure arena, the increasing availability of data provides a profound opportunity for innovation and progress.

A prime example is roadway maintenance. Regular maintenance saves lives and extends the useful life of transportation infrastructure. However, before any maintenance can occur, a department of transportation must be aware that a problem exists, which requires costly and time-consuming road surveys.

That’s where data and AI can help. For example, Hawaii DOT used crowdsourced imagery plus machine learning models to automatically survey its road network for cracks, debris, damaged guardrails and more, detecting 930 problems per week across the state. New York City DOT applied a similar approach to automatically inspect all 1,650 crosswalks in the city and analyze the condition of paint lines within each crosswalk.

These same technologies, applied nationwide, were used to create a map of public roads in the United States, complete with paint retroreflectivity scores for roads within state capitals. The map can assist state and local departments of transportation as they prepare to meet new Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) minimum levels of retroreflectivity for pavement markings, set to take effect in 2026.

In these cases, AI acts as a valuable assistant, but not replacement, for infrastructure professionals, augmenting their capabilities rather than supplanting them. It can improve existing work, like accelerating the speed and efficiency of roadway inspections, and it also frees up valuable time and resources by automating tedious tasks and streamlining decision-making processes, allowing professionals to expand their productivity and focus on higher-value work.

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