This Bengaluru startup is set to offer an AI solution for potholes in the city - wins Rs 20 lakhs to be used for execution.

The recent spurt in the growth of Artificial Intelligence in India has not gone unnoticed. In fact, there are predictions from experts that by 2030, the country will witness an increase in AI-based jobs and roles.

Another report has also shown that by 2025, the Artificial Intelligence market in India will reach a figure of $7.8 billion. The growth will be at a rate of 20.2% compound annual growth (CAGR).

Naturally, startups working in the realm of Artificial Intelligence are also emerging and growing at a steady momentum.

One of these is a Bengaluru-based startup that is aiming to resolve the problem of potholes in the city by employing Artificial Intelligence.

RoadMetrics

Founded by Dipen Babariya, Mishal Jariwala, and Nikhil Prasad Maroli, RoadMetrics is a startup that has developed an algorithm that utilizes Artificial Intelligence to extract road conditions, street assets, etc.

Essentially, RoadMetrics offers an automated solution in place of manual road assessments that compromise efficiency and also take up a lot of time.

Through the data-driven road condition assessment, road maintenance and asset management take a whole turn towards efficiency and are hugely benefitted.

A unique pain point that RoadMetrics is trying to address is the untimely identification of road defects. More often than not, defects are identified very late, and a lot of costs are incurred on repair and maintenance.

With an Artificial Intelligence solution employed, these defects can be identified on time. Customers and stakeholders will have to spend way less on road maintenance and repair in the future.

The process

RoadMetrics describes itself as an end-to-end road infrastructure maintenance solution.

The process through which it works is pretty simple.

Firstly, a smartphone has to be mounted. Then, a road carriageway video data needs to be uploaded.

This video data is taken from a survey on the RoadMetrics Data Collection App.

Once that is done, the user quickly receives an automated assessment of the specific road network.

The uses

The RoadMetrics AI has multiple uses.

- The web-based platform of the startup allows the stakeholders to calculate the defects and the maintenance costs needed to rectify them. This helps in building the budget accordingly.

- With RoadMetrics, users have access to road assessment history. This can be directly put to use to design development plans for the future.

- Since stakeholders will have data about defects, potholes, and any other areas that need to be looked into, maintenance can be taken up on a priority basis. There would be no delays, basically.

- High-resolution imagery and classification of roads on a scale of 0 to 10 help the Municipal Corporation to prepare strategies and implement plans in order to improve road conditions.

The Mobility AI Grand Challenge of the Telangana AI Mission

Recently, RoadMetrics participated in the Mobility AI Grand Challenge of the Telangana AI Mission in partnership with Capgemini.

The challenge was announced with the intention of pushing innovation towards the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC).

The challenge was mainly for startups to come up with unique AI solutions that can not just identify but also classify potholes in the city.

Around 100 applications came in, and out of them, only 15 startups were selected to build a Proof of Concept.

With offices in London as well as Bengaluru, RoadMetrics won the challenge.

It is set to receive Rupees 20 lakhs plus mentoring from experts to run the pilot project.