Harvesting Road Data with Connected, Electric School Buses

Purpose and goal

This project intends to showcase the abilities of using existing vehicles (in this case electric school buses) operating on the roads as data harvesters for a more efficient operation and maintenance of the road network. By equipping Highland Fleets’ electric school buses with Univrses’ 3DAI City system it’s possible to quickly gather, analyze and supply public authorities, fleet owners and others with critical road data enabling better and more cost and time efficient decisions.

Expected effects and result

By using vehicles that are already moving on the roads, we can reduce the number of vehicles that need to go out to keep track and make inventories of the road environment. Through proactive work when it comes to maintenance of the road surface and the road environment, both time and cost can be reduced. In addition, by extending the life of the road it´s also possible to point to significant environmental upsides. In addition, frequent insights from the road enable a safer environment for all road users, including vulnerable road users.

Planned approach and implementation

Highland Fleets vehicles will be equipped with camera units installed with Univrses´ software application 3DAI. These vehicles are then carrying out their normal duties and meanwhile data is automatically collected from the road environment. This data can then be presented to local authorities to enable better decisions to be made around operations and maintenance of the road environment, and more.