Accelerat ing t he world's research.

IRJET- Assessment of Pothole Using

QGIS & AutoCAD So ware
IRJET Journal

Related papers Download a PDF Pack of t he best relat ed papers 

IRJET-V5I
Vandana Joshi
 International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 06 Issue: 04 | Apr 2019 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

Assessment of Pothole Using QGIS & AutoCAD Software

Chinmay Yadav1, Hrishikesh Shinde2, Sneha Sude3, Prachi Shinde4, Shruti Ganla5,
Dr. Sanjay Kulkarni6
1,2,3,4Under Graduate Student, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Dr. D Y Patil School of Engineering & Technology,
Lohegaon, Pune
5,6Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Dr. D Y Patil School of Engineering & Technology, Lohegaon, Pune

---------------------------------------------------------------------***----------------------------------------------------------------------
Abstract - Road distress like cracks, potholes and settlement owners. According to information reported by police
of sub-grade is rising due to climatic variations such as heavy department of all States and Union Territories, total number
rains, cyclic changes in temperature because of global of road accidents due to potholes for the years 2013, 2014
warming and use of conventional method for road and 2015 are tabulated below in Table No. 1:
construction. India is having a significant concern in this
segment. The conventional road surface management systems Table 1: Total Number of Road Accidents in India
are becoming impaired in front of traffic density and condition
of roads, which is weakening day by day. Compared to Sr No Year Road Accidents
previous years in India, the year 2017 has 50% hike in number due to Potholes
of road accidents occurring due pothole related issues. Lot of 1 2013 9966
research is been done for repair of potholes but is lacking in its 2 2014 11,106
application. It is prominent and essential to develop 3 2015 10,876
techniques with rapid pothole detection having significant
accuracy and in minimum expense. India is a vast country with As one type of pavement damage, pothole is defined as a
more than 55 lacks kilometers of road networks and it is not at bowl-shaped depression in the pavement surface. A pothole
all feasible to access pothole damaged roads without a is a structural failure in a road surface, usually asphalt
relevant technology. In this study efforts are been taken to pavement, due to water in the underlying soil structure and
implement remote sensing and GIS techniques in rapid pothole traffic passing over the affected area. Water first weakens
detection and their volume calculation. Data collection for the underlying soil; traffic then fatigues and breaks the
case study is done using ODK Collect and analyzed in QGIS poorly supported asphalt surface in the affected area.
software for pothole detection; while for cost optimization, Continued traffic action ejects both asphalt and the
volume is been calculated measured depth and calculated area underlying soil material to create a hole in the pavement.
in Auto CAD software. The information extracted by
application of remote sensing and GIS will not only ensure the Potholes form because asphalt surfaces eventually crack
time-saving pothole detection but also can achieve cost under the heat of the day and the constant stresses of traffic
optimization through optimum budget estimation of repair also when the pavement or the material beneath the
materials. pavement can no longer support the weight of the traffic it
carries. There are two common causes of potholes: water
Key Words: Potholes, Geo-tagging, QGIS, Auto CAD, and traffic.
Volume.
The potholes are formed with the following 4 steps:
1. INTRODUCTION
1. Potholes begin after snow or rain seeps into the soil below
Construction of roads have been started from long years ago the road surface.
with use of various methods and materials. We have
addressed a remarkable transformation and improvement in 2. The moisture freezes when temperatures cool to freezing
techniques of construction of roads accordingly as the time at night. The water becomes ice, causing the ground to
has been passed by. Many researches strive to improve the expand and push the pavement up.
quality and strength of roads so that it could last longer and
stronger without any distress like cracks, settlement of sub- 3. As temperatures rise, the ground returns to normal level
grade and potholes. However, practically it is not possible as but the pavement often remains raised. This creates a gap
type of traffic, its density, climates and many other factors between the pavement and the ground below it.
are changing day by day, gradually leading to damages in
pavements. Not to mention the importance of maintenance 4. When vehicles drive over this cavity, the weight of the
of roads as we have witnessed a number of road accidents traffic causes the pavement surface to crack and fall into the
due to road surface distress and furthermore the damage hollow space, leading to the birth of another pothole. The
faced by vehicles directly affecting the pockets of vehicle

© 2019, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 7.211 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 2701
 International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 06 Issue: 04 | Apr 2019 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

first prominent reason for formation of pothole is formation 4. OBJECTIVES

of crack.
The basic objective of this research is to study and
2. LITERATURE REVIEW analyze the assessment of potholes using techniques relied
upon remote sensing and GIS, which gives maximum useful
K. Kamal, S. Mathavan, T. Zafar, I. Moazzam, A. Ali, S. output in less time compared to traditional methods.
Usman Ahmad and M. Rahman (2017), proposed results Objectives of this study are broadly defined as,
of Kinect sensor performance assessment in which 2.8 % and
5.47 % of mean percentage error was found for depth 1. To study the use of ODK Collect mobile application
calculation and volumetric calculations respectively, with the for depth recording and other data collection.
help of MATLAB software. Also compared the depth and 2. To study detection of potholes by geo-tagging them
volume of potholes for various conditions such as potholes in QGIS Software.
with water, mud, etc. and plotted contour of potholes and 3. To calculate volume of pothole using Auto CAD
RGB, depth and mesh plot of a natural pothole. software and measured depth.

Muaev, Z. Jiang, S. Jones, P. Sheinidashtegol, and M. 5. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Dzhumaliev (2018), developed a road map for detected
potholes and road damages, using social media (Twitter) and Potholes are most annoying and frustrating form of road
completed the hotspot analysis of potholes using heatmap distress. As we know that potholes occur in irregular shapes
layers of google maps API to determine hotspot location. and sizes hence, volume of filler material required to repair
the pothole cannot be determine by visual inspection or any
H. Yousaf, K. Azhar, F. Murtaza and F. Hussain (2018), definite measuring equipment. This chapter gives brief
developed objective evaluation criteria for potholes information about the methodology opted for research work.
localising action from the detected images of potholes.
Moreover, categorised potholes using bag of words (BOW) The methodology for finding solution of above-
approach and classified potholes from images using scale- mentioned problem is integrated in following points:
invariant feature transform (SIFT) feature point.
 Case Study
3. PROBLEM STATEMENT  Geo-Tagging of Potholes
Potholes are usually caused by the presence of heavy  Volume calculations
traffic and water on roads. Several studies conducted in
cities such as Chandigarh and Mumbai point to the lack of a
proper drainage system and weak proportioning of
aggregates for road construction as major reasons for
pothole formation. It is evident that potholes are such kind of
dangerous parameter causing loss of lives that too on large
extend.

Supreme court took a note of 3597 deaths due to pothole

related road accidents in 2017. Around 50 people were Fig -1: Research Methodology
injured when a bus overturned due to a pothole on Delhi-
Haridwar national highway (New Indian Express). Moreover, 5.1 Case Study
it was observed that the number of road accidental deaths
was more than the fatalities caused by terrorist attacks in The road length of 1 km is selected for case study, local
India. street name: Khadsamble-Muthavali Road which is
present at periphery of Mahad city district Raigad,
Therefore, it becomes necessary to ensure the use of Maharashtra.
standardized methodology and good quality material when
constructing roads. There also needs to be regular
maintenance and an effective system to ensure
accountability. There is a need to incorporate the Safe
System Approach in all aspects of road design, engineering
and construction. Significantly potholes need to be repaired
in less time as well as with long life solution and optimum
cost.

Fig -2: Research Methodology

© 2019, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 7.211 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 2702
 International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 06 Issue: 04 | Apr 2019 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

During the onsite visit of 1km stretch road length The area calculation for the pothole was performed using
study found out that 16 numbers of noticeable potholes were AUTOCAD software. Those pictures of potholes taken with
present. Pictures of each pothole were taken using Android measuring scale kept aside during the Geotagging of
Smartphone with GPS feature turned on for the global potholes were then imported in the AUTOCAD software
positioning coordinates capturing with photographs. using “IM” command, then the area for the captured pothole
was calculated by plotting edge using “polyline” command
5.2 Geo-Tagging of Potholes and by scale referencing feature in AUTOCAD scale is
adjusted and area is calculated using “area” command. This
There are various methods for detection of potholes but area is the recorded for further processing.
majority of them are time consuming and tedious. For large
data area survey, it is very difficult to access the whole area
in limited time. QGIS software is used for detection of
potholes which relies on the techniques of remote sensing
and GIS.
Furthermore, the potholes identified in the case study
were Geotagged by using QGIS software to obtain a location
map of potholes. At first the photographs were taken in
Smartphone (GPS feature is to be kept ON while taking
photograph and the measuring scale should be kept aside
the pothole for area calculations in AutoCAD software).
These photographs were uploaded to QGIS software using
“import photo” plugin, which were further analysed to get
visual map of selected terrain showing the photographs of
potholes with their Latitudes & Longitudes, which shows the Fig - 4: Area Calculated in AutoCAD
present condition of road pavement under the study area.
B) Depth Calculation

Data collection by using surveying instrument is too

complicated. By using ODK Unskilled person can also handle
easily and accurate results are obtained. Climatic condition
doesn't affect the survey work when ODK is been used. It
also reduces the total cost of the project and requires less
time for completion of the survey. Data collection i.e.
recording of depths and images of potholes occurring on 1
km route. (District- Raigad, Taluka- Mahad, Route:
Khadsamble-Muthavali Road) is done for this research work.

Average depth of each pothole was found for volume

Fig -3: Geo-Tagged Pothole in QGIS calculation of filler material. Depth calculations were done
manually at each pothole by taking average of 5 reading of
depth at various points in pothole and recorded the same in
5.3 Volume Calculation
the ODK application which further gives the summarized
After the Geotagging of all potholes in the study road data of all pothole depths collected in the study in required
stretch, the main issue to be tackled is volume calculations formats.
for filler material, which is done in two parts, Area
Calculation & Depth Calculation 6. DISSCUSSION

On combining all the calculated data of potholes,

A) Area Calculation
collected from respective methods i.e.
There are various methods for calculating the area of
 Depth readings of pothole (in cm) from ODK mobile
pothole like using MATLAB software and sensors like Kinect
application.
sensor which uses infrared waves to calculate area and
depth of pothole instantly but these methods are very  Calculated area of pothole (in cm2) from AutoCAD
expensive and require expert level handling so we have software.
selected area calculation using AutoCAD which is relatively
We can calculate the volume of pothole i.e. volume of
easy and inexpensive method but is time consuming.
material required to fill pothole by following calculations:

© 2019, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 7.211 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 2703
 International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 06 Issue: 04 | Apr 2019 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

Volume = Average depth of pothole × Area of pothole [4] Musaev, Z. Jiang, S. Jones, P. Sheinidashtegol & M.
Dzhumaliev, “Detection of Damage and Failure Events of
Thus, by calculating volume of all detected potholes from the Road Infrastructure Using Social Media,” Springer
case study we get, International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature., pp
134-148. 2018.
 Estimate of the total amount of filler material [5] P Wang, Y Hu, Y. Dai & M. Tian, “Asphalt Pavement
required for the repair of potholes. Pothole Detection and Segmentation Based on Wavelet
 This estimate can optimize the filler material cost Energy Field,” Hindawi Mathematical Problems in
necessary for fixing the pothole. Engineering., vol. 2017, pp 1-13, 2017.
 It saves the wastage material cost. [6] K. De Zoysa, C. Keppitiyagama, G. P. Seneviratne, and
W.W.A.T. Shihan, “A public transport system based
It achieves economy in maintenance and repair of potholes. sensor network for road surface condition monitoring,”
Now after collecting all the information about the potholes in In Proc. Workshop, Networked Systems for Developing
the study area, the exact quantity required for filler material Regions, 2007, pp. 1-6.
and geographical position of each pothole is known. The [7] A. Mednis, G. Strazdins, R. Zviedris, G. Kanonirs, and L.
repair process can be planned and put in the action Selavo, “Real time pothole detection using Android
effectively with minimum wastage of filling material & smartphones with accelerometers,” in Proc. Int. Conf.,
labour time. Distributed Computing in Sensor Systems and
Workshops., 2001, pp. 1-6.
7. CONCLUSIONS [8] Buza, E., S. Omanovic, and A. Huseinnovic, “Stereo vision
techniques in the road pavement evaluation,” in Proc.
Due to heavy traffic and presence of water on road 2nd Int. Conf., Information Technology and Computer
potholes are formed. Various studies show that improper Networks., 2013, pp. 48-53.
drainage system and poor mixing of aggregates for [9] Lokeshwor, H., L. Das, and S. Goel, “Robust method for
construction of road are major reasons for formation of automated segmentation of frames with/without
potholes causing loss of life on large extent. Many deaths distress from road surface video clips,” Journal of
occurred in road accident were due to presence of pothole Transportation Engineering., vol. 140, pp. 31-41, 2014.
on road. [10] Q. Li, M. Yao, X. Yao, and B. Xu, “A real-time 3D scanning
system for pavement distortion inspection,”
This study tried to come up with a method to detect Measurement Science and Technology, vol. 21, no. 1, pp.
pothole and to determine how much material is required to 15702-15709, 2009.
fill those potholes. There are various advance methods of
pothole detection using high cost sensors and heavy
machines so there is a need to find a method which does not
require any of those costly sensors so this study tried a
approach which is not only relatively easy but also cost
effective as no need of costly sensors or software is needed.

Due to this approach pothole detection and road

repairs and their maintenance becomes easy and thus many
lives are saved from accidents due to pothole, and overall
road quality is increased.

REFERENCES

[1] S. Mane, S. N. Gujarathi, S. S. Arkatkar, A. K. Sarkar, A. P.

Singh, “Methodology For Pavement Condition
Assessment And Maintenance Of Rural Roads,” in
Proc.IIT Roorkee National Conf. FYPMGSY., 2016, pp. 1-
14
[2] Mohd Sohel Deshmukh, Swapnil R.Rajput, “Smartphone
Based Citizen Complaint System For Urban Maintenance
Using GIS,”IJSER, vol.7, no.5, pp. 1591-1599, 2016.
[3] K. Kamal, S. Mathavan, T. Zafar, I. Moazzam, A. Ali, S.
Usman Ahmad & M. Rahman, “Performance assessment
of Kinect as a sensor for pothole imaging and
metrology,” Taylor & Francis InternatIonal Journal of
Pavement engineering., pp. 1-12, 2016.

© 2019, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 7.211 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 2704