Alabama DoT links highway asset data to budget choices

The Alabama Department of Transportation (Aldot) has announced it has upgraded its existing performance-based budgeting process for highway maintenance.

Aldot is leveraging infrastructure engineering software company Bentley Systems’ AI-powered Blyncsy solution to refine its implementation to ensure maintenance funds are allocated based on objective, data-driven insights.

Asset condition data

Historically, the department reports that collecting asset condition data across Alabama’s 11,000 miles of roadway network has required significant manual effort and resources.

While Aldot has long employed a data-driven statewide survey, traditional methods, such as manual inspections, are labour-intensive and can introduce inconsistencies. With the aim of improving efficiency and accuracy, Aldot is incorporating Blyncsy’s automated AI analytics into its established process, providing a faster and more consistent assessment of specific designated roadway assets.

“To strengthen our performance-based budgeting, we need consistent, quantified data to produce condition assessments across all districts”

Blyncsy, part of Bentley’s asset analytics portfolio, uses crowdsourced high-resolution dash camera imagery from vehicles and applies AI to automatically analyse roadway conditions.

This provides a consistent, empirical assessment of critical assets, such as guardrails and signage to name a few, across the entire roadway network. Bentley claims a previous pilot project demonstrated that Blyncsy’s AI models achieved 97 per cent accuracy, providing the reliable data foundation required for precise financial planning.