Million dollar idea

[Hammerboy]

This idea is inspired by the awful road thread and my experience this weekend coming home from a trip.

Imagine opening up Google maps on your smartphone and when you are planning a route for a trip in unfamiliar areas you can toggle what minimum road condition you want on a scale of 1-5. Kind of like how you can toggle to avoid highways or toll roads. Or maybe even color code the route on the map based on condition. The technology may not be there yet to make this work as all the information would have to be crowd sourced currently or maybe in the future when smart self driving cars are commonplace they can send live info with their sensors kind of like live traffic we have today. This would also be beneficial in the wintertime for if roads are slick or not.

My first choice would be for the roads to be repaired and maintained as they should but I'm not counting on that.

Dan

[westend]

And then there are the bad stretches of a through-route. Does the driver look for an alternative route or just persevere through the bad stretch? Interstate 94 is one example of this. The road is good through WI West and East bound but the roadway is failing Westbound in MN past the Twin Cities. If I was heading for Fargo, I'd take US 10 to beyond St Cloud and reenter I 94 North of there. Seriously, it will take your teeth out.

[drsteve]

Hammerboy wrote:

T18skyguy wrote:

RGar974417 wrote:
That would be nice.It might also be a wake up call if people are avoiding your state because the roads suck.

So true. Years back Overdrive magazine did a poll of truckers on which state had the worst roads. There we're a few runner ups, but the majority opinion was Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania cried foul and said "that's not a scientific study". So they did a scientific study, and the results we're (drum roll) Pennsylvania. Now before anyone gets mad at me, I was born and raised in Pennsylvania. Back then the PA Turnpike was beautiful. I don't know about it now.

Today I seen an article in USA today that listed Pennsylvania as having the 4th worst in infrastructure but yet spent the 9th highest per driver. In contrast Florida was the best and spent the 22nd lowest per driver.

Dan

Florida has no freeze/thaw cycle destroying the roads, and half the drivers are in golf carts.

[Hammerboy]

T18skyguy wrote:

RGar974417 wrote:
That would be nice.It might also be a wake up call if people are avoiding your state because the roads suck.

So true. Years back Overdrive magazine did a poll of truckers on which state had the worst roads. There we're a few runner ups, but the majority opinion was Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania cried foul and said "that's not a scientific study". So they did a scientific study, and the results we're (drum roll) Pennsylvania. Now before anyone gets mad at me, I was born and raised in Pennsylvania. Back then the PA Turnpike was beautiful. I don't know about it now.

Today I seen an article in USA today that listed Pennsylvania as having the 4th worst in infrastructure but yet spent the 9th highest per driver. In contrast Florida was the best and spent the 22nd lowest per driver.

Dan

[afidel]

beemerphile1 wrote:
Since Waze is crowd sourced it would work better. Users could add their opinion of a road on a 1-5 scale.

FWIW, Google bought Waze in 2013.

No need to ask users, collect the data automatically through the accelerometer built into almost every smart phone, too many users experience more than a certain number of vertical g's and you automatically flag that section of road.

[T18skyguy]

RGar974417 wrote:
That would be nice.It might also be a wake up call if people are avoiding your state because the roads suck.

So true. Years back Overdrive magazine did a poll of truckers on which state had the worst roads. There we're a few runner ups, but the majority opinion was Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania cried foul and said "that's not a scientific study". So they did a scientific study, and the results we're (drum roll) Pennsylvania. Now before anyone gets mad at me, I was born and raised in Pennsylvania. Back then the PA Turnpike was beautiful. I don't know about it now.

[Harvey51]

The province of Alberta has a website for road information, including a bunch of webcams.
Alberta 511

[john_bet]

We did a trip last month thru Indiana, Kentucky, Tennesse, and North Carolina. The only bad spot was a 25 mile streatch east of Ashville, N.C. on I- 40 where they had milled the road off for repavement, but had not done it yet.

[beemerphile1]

Since Waze is crowd sourced it would work better. Users could add their opinion of a road on a 1-5 scale.

FWIW, Google bought Waze in 2013.

[Lwiddis]

I focus on the beauty of the area, not the road’s condition. Keeps the BP down.

[RedRocket204]

You can actually report road hazards on the Waze app in realtime. But that doesn't allow for a road rating system.

[Hammerboy]

interesting idea but who decides what qualifies for a particular rating? would the rating be for the road in general or specific stretches?


I am imagining this is technology based such as radar, laser, accelerometer, etc and other stuff I have no idea about. The more and severe the imperfections in the road the lower the rating. The technology exists but not implemented yet fully on automobiles except maybe Teslas. Imagine thousands of cars that travel the roads daily just like how Google gathers information on live traffic time but instead it gathers information on the quality of the road. Now imagine instead of turning on your live traffic you can switch to see how rough the road is, maybe shade the road kind of like the weather radar shades the storms. That would tell you everything about the road even if it's just a stretch a few hundred feet long assuming you zoom in on the map.

I'm not always concerned about how rough road is except when I am towing. A bad road really magnifies the imperfections in the road and that's when I would find it really handy.

Dan

[NMDriver2]

All you need is to know the projected 1-3 yr resurfacing projects of the state road department. Not what is currently being worked on, that is already available on the web in most states, but what is programmed for future budget years.

[rk911]

Hammerboy wrote:
This idea is inspired by the awful road thread and my experience this weekend coming home from a trip.

Imagine opening up Google maps on your smartphone and when you are planning a route for a trip in unfamiliar areas you can toggle what minimum road condition you want on a scale of 1-5. Kind of like how you can toggle to avoid highways or toll roads. Or maybe even color code the route on the map based on condition. The technology may not be there yet to make this work as all the information would have to be crowd sourced currently or maybe in the future when smart self driving cars are commonplace they can send live info with their sensors kind of like live traffic we have today. This would also be beneficial in the wintertime for if roads are slick or not.

My first choice would be for the roads to be repaired and maintained as they should but I'm not counting on that.

Dan

interesting idea but who decides what qualifies for a particular rating? would the rating be for the road in general or specific stretches?

[ScottG]

They can't even keep up with changes on major interstates so I don't see how they could keep up with road conditions.