Honda and DriveOhio pilot sensor-driven system to accelerate road repairs in the US

Honda partnered with DriveOhio to test an on-vehicle sensing system that automatically detects and reports roadway defects, aiming to shrink the time between problem occurrence and remediation. A compact test fleet traversed a mix of city and country routes under varied weather and lighting, collecting synchronized camera and LiDAR observations over roughly 3,000 miles. The pilot reported very high detection performance for missing or obstructed signage and damaged guardrails, and nearly comparable success identifying potholes and degraded pavement. Data was delivered into the Ohio Department of Transportation’s review pipeline so issues could be triaged and converted into work orders without waiting for manual field inspections or citizen complaints. Honda projects that automating detection and routing could reduce inspection costs substantially, estimating north of $4.5 million in annual savings for the department if broadly adopted. Beyond immediate savings, real-time flagging shortens the exposure window for hazardous assets, which can reduce secondary vehicle damage and safety incidents. Scaling will require broader participation by connected vehicles to increase geographic coverage and revisit frequency, and the pilot suggests sensor fusion (vision + LiDAR) raises detection reliability across environments. Practical adoption hinges on interoperability with municipal asset-management systems, standards for anonymized reporting, and clear protocols for prioritizing repairs from automated feeds. Technical risks include false positives from transient occlusions, sensor degradation over time, and data quality variability in adverse weather; these must be quantified in staged deployments. There are also governance issues: municipalities will need procurement models that accommodate continuous data streams and recurring analysis, not just one-off hardware purchases. If implemented carefully, the approach could shift some maintenance budgets away from labor-intensive inspections toward targeted interventions guided by live data. The pilot demonstrates feasibility but stops short of proving long-term operational savings or coverage thresholds needed to replace routine field surveys. Next steps should include expanded pilots with diverse vehicle fleets, benchmarked error rates, and formalized handoff procedures between data providers and road authorities.