Self-driving vehicles can map road damage in real time, helping other cars steer clear, and potentially giving cities faster ways to fix potholes.<\/p>\n
SAN DIEGO \u2014 Drivers in San Diego know potholes are hard to avoid and expensive to ignore. On busy roads like Mira Mesa Boulevard, hitting one can mean anything from a rough ride to serious vehicle damage.<\/p>\n
\u201cPotholes are very dangerous. They cause a lot of tire damage, front-end damage,\u201d said driver Tom Aylott.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s not just drivers feeling the impact. Cyclists say the bumpy rides are just as frustrating and costly.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, there\u2019s a lot. I\u2019ve gotten like six flat tires just hitting them,\u201d said bike rider Calen Mallory.<\/p>\n
Now, companies like Waymo and Waze are working on technology designed to change that. Using sensors built into their self-driving vehicles, Waymo cars can detect potholes as they drive. The system relies on the vehicle\u2019s motion control, essentially sensing how the car reacts when it hits a dip in the road.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s through our motion control system. We basically feel the car might vibrate or tilt when we go over these dips, and that\u2019s the information that we collect,\u201d said Arielle Fleisher, a policy development and research manager at Waymo.<\/p>\n
That information is then mapped and shared across vehicles, allowing other cars in the network to avoid the same trouble spots in real time. Now, that same data is also being shared with cities through the \u201cWaze for Cities\u201d platform, a system that connects road data directly with local governments.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe realized, \u2018Hey, cities are asking us for pothole data. We\u2019re collecting this pothole data to improve the Waymo driver. Let\u2019s get it to cities, let\u2019s fulfill this need,\u2019\u201d Fleisher said.<\/p>\n
The program is currently being piloted in five cities, but Waymo says it plans to expand, including to San Diego. In fact, Waymo vehicles are already test-driving on San Diego streets and freeways ahead of a broader public launch expected later this year. The goal isn\u2019t just smoother rides but safer roads.<\/p>\n
\u201cPotholes cause people to swerve, possibly hit somebody that might be in their blind spot. They\u2019re definitely a big, big danger out there,\u201d Aylott said.<\/p>\n
Right now, San Diego relies heavily on drivers to report potholes. More than 6,000 complaints have already been submitted so far this year, and it can take crews around 10 days to repair a reported pothole. Waymo says its real-time data could help cities respond more quickly and efficiently.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there is a way that the driving apps and maps out there can alert the city as to where the potholes are, that would be a tremendous help,\u201d Aylott said.<\/p>\n
When Waymo officially launches its driverless ride service in San Diego, the company says it plans to make that pothole data available to the city, potentially giving crews another tool to find and fix road damage faster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Self-driving vehicles can map road damage in real time, helping other cars steer clear, and potentially giving cities…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,76,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-260536","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-san-diego","9":"tag-san-diego-headlines","10":"tag-san-diego-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}