Machine vision system for road safety inspection- SV2

Project Information

SV2

Grant agreement ID: 696854

DOI

10.3030/696854

Project closed

EC signature date 26 August 2015

Start date 1 September 2015

End date 29 February 2016

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Smart, Green And Integrated Transport

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

INGENIERIA Y VISION ARTIFICIAL
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SV2 (Machine vision system for road safety inspection- SV2)

Reporting period: 2015-09-01 to 2016-02-29

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

"This Feasibility Study of SV2 project ""Machine Vision System for Road Safety Inspection"", developed by the company Engineering and Machine Vision (INVAR), as set out in the Grand Agreement nº696854 with the Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME), is part of Phase I of the SME Instrument (H2020-SMEINST-1-2015) in the topic ""Small business Innovation Research for Transport"" (IT-1-2015-1).
The competitive advantage of SV2 project lies in an increased performance of current roads inspection process, which means saving money (over than 95% respect on foot inspection), optimization of available resources and improving road safety.
The result of the recording and measuring campaigns with the specialized vehicle (equipped with cameras, sensors, GNSS, and using machine vision-based technology as a differentiator in the recognition of road equipment), is the updated inventory of characteristics which serves as a basis for developing inspection reports and road safety audits.
According to customer needs, SV2 can offer the kilometer at three different levels (inventory, inspection and audits) and targets companies related with road conservation and maintenance, motorway and highways concessionaries, engineering and consulting companies, road safety auditors and public or private administrations with competence in the management of road infrastructure networks.
In the EU, with more than 5 million km of roads, it is planned for the first five (5) years of activity, reaching a market share next to 1.5 %, with a strategy of gradual implementation taking into account EU countries with more potential network length (Spain, France, Portugal, Italy, United Kingdom and Germany).
Estimates based on market exploration, recorded for the fifth year a volume of incomes around 1.5 million EUR, with annual net income of 0.7 million EUR. It is planned to create 23 jobs during initial period, the acquisition of 3 vehicles for recording and measurement, a computer network for image processing with machine vision, and also a web platform to manage the information.
SV2 is an ambitious project, that at social level increases road safety for European citizens, and whose economic impact means optimizing required resources and saving costs resulting from accidents and field data collection process.
"

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Idea description (origin, company and promoters, detection of customers needs, differentiation, advantages and customers benefits)
Analysis of the target market (type, location, potential customers and main competitors)
Identify necessary resources, production and location policy (Operational plan)
Definition of Product, Price, Distribution, Promotion (Marketing Plan)
Identify potential partner (technological and commercial) and/or strategic market alliances
Identification of funding needs and sources (Financial plan)
Definition of the technical and economic feasibility of the project
Valorisation and investment budget of the project
IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) status analysis

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

"Road safety for European citizens is a social problem at first level. In European roads, according to the DG for Mobility and Transport of the EU Commission, during year 2013 over 1.055.000 accident were recorded with 26.045 deaths (equivalent to the population of a medium sized city) with more than 1.388.000 injured people (CARE EU road accidents database March 2014). These figures are showing that throughout a year there are 2.890 daily accidents with a total of 71 deaths and 3.803 injured people. In comparison with the total EU population these figures are showing a rate of 52 deaths per million inhabitants.

At first glance accidents (6.3 death per 100,000 inhabitants) could be considered a minor problem compared to other causes of death Circulatory disease (393,6 death per 100,000 inhabitants), Cancer (266.9 death per 100,000 inhabitants) or Heart disease (136.8 death per 100,000 inhabitans). However, if mortality taking into consideration the age is analyzed, it is observed that accidents, in general, and traffic accidents in particular are one of the most important causes in the younger age groups, so the accidents supose a high social cost by causing a high premature mortality.
These figures are showing a high social cost and the associated costs which are spent to improve transport network safety. A study developed in 2009 (HEATCO) based on the value of life expectancy, showed that the total costs linked to all these accidents are nearly of 130.000 M€ equivalent to the 2% of total European GDP (Gross Domestic Product).

EU Policy is establishing all necessary mechanisms to ensure maintenance, sustainability and safe mobility for all European citizens.
An inventory of roads is a prerequisite in order to improve network´s quality in a more efficient way. This inventory should contain all the roads elements including historical data on construction and use. It should also be updated on a regular way.

In this context, 2008/96/EC European Directive on safety management of road infrastructure, establishes the need for all member states to conduct periodic inspections, audits and safety impact assessment, of road infrastructure.
The directive ""2008/96/EC"" has supposed to Member States of the EU, an adaptation of the legislative and regulatory framework, incorporating in network management the mandatory to develop road safety audits (RSA) and inspections (RSIs).

Innovation capacity and differentiation of SV2 is process automation of updated data collection through the use of sensors and machine vision, allowing to reach higher yields inspection ratios (km/hour) and unit costs (EUR/km) lower than the current ones already in the market, introducing direct money savings in relation with the actual costs. The integration of all information into a single platform also allows customers a faster and more effective decision making.

With SV2 per 100 km of road inspection, are reached a cost savings up to 95 % in comparison with “on foot method”, including the advantage of improving security conditions to all workers which must travel on the road.

SV2 project addresses an important market with a high workload on the total mileage of roads to manage in the EU. In total more than 5,2 million kilometers




"

Machine Vision System for Road Safety Inspection (SV2)