One thing Indian cities and towns cannot get better at is the quality of their roads. No matter how much they fix it, they end up getting pot-holes, which not only make our journey uncomfortable but also dangerous, especially for two-wheelers.
However, a startup might have a solution for us to make our journey better.
Dipen Babariya, a computer science graduate, along with his colleague Mishaal Jariwala and Industrial Engineering expert Nikhil Prasad Maroli have created RoadMetrics -- a deep learning startup that detects potholes and cracks on the roads and help people pick a better route -- in real-time.
While we do have Google Maps today, and it does do a fairly good job, it isn¡¯t optimised for Indian conditions yet. According to Dipen, in a conversation with ET, ¡°We then realised the need for a map specific to Indian road conditions.¡±
The trio look at images and sensor data from their smartphones to denote deformities in the route. The AI algorithm classifies the pothole in a category -- cracks, vertical, horizontal, alligator etc. -- with respect to the data available.
Mishaal Jariwala told ET, ¡°We detect 12 types of road defects. The AI/ML algorithm has been trained with over 100,000 image data points in two different cities, and this has enabled us to achieve a high accuracy rate of over 90%. We also collect sensor data (accelerometer and gyroscope) for further validation and this ensures that our accuracy increases.¡±
The app comes in two variants -- mobile and enterprise. In case of the former, it asks you to select the vehicle of your choice, for it to suggest appropriate routes for the same. The roads will be colour coded with respect to how good or bad their condition is ranging from Green which means a smooth ride, all the way to Red, being the worst of the lot.
The mobile app is currently in beta stage and is currently showing an accuracy of over 90 percent without any human intervention.?
As of now, they¡¯ve covered over 1000 kilometres of roads in the country and they expect to cover 10,000 by the end of this year. They¡¯re also currently running a pilot project of the same in collaboration with Surat Municipal Corporation.?