Monitoring for highways

The complete solution for monitoring in a highway environment

Monitoring highways

Keeping our busy highways operating efficiently and safely is essential for the economy, but this can only be achieved by regularly maintaining, upgrading and expanding the infrastructure.

Yet nearby construction activities or re-development of these assets increases the risk of damaging them. This can also occur when being used differently to the original design intention. Highways and associated structures become susceptible to deformation over time, leading to potentially increasing safety concerns and rising maintenance costs.

Deformation monitoring provides real-time information about movements, allowing data-driven decisions to prolong the life of highways and structures, ensure protection to users, and contribute to proactive reductions of maintenance to ensure the highest safety, which is crucial when the highway is operational.

Total Monitoring combines data from geodetic monitoring sensors (total stations, GNSS or levels) with geotechnical and environmental sensors (tilt sensors, crack or strain gauges, weather stations, etc.) and interferometric radar. It delivers the complete picture about events occurring aiding a greater understanding of the influence on structures. Using innovative scanning technologies for automated monitoring, data obtained from Leica Nova MS60 MultiStation ensures highways can be automatically monitored non-intrusively and without disruption, thus not closing traffic lanes causing obstructions and delays.

Why is monitoring essential for highways:

During construction any excavation or activity that takes place on, near or below a highway may cause movements or subsidence, potentially damaging the adjacent highway surface and putting the traffic at risk if not detected quickly.
Maintenance works, upgrades and expansion of the highway create extra hazards and increase risk to its safe and efficient operation. Therefore, for this period the infrastructure needs to be monitored to understand any side effects and limit how these improvements cause ground movement or structural damage.
Monitoring structural health of the highway, on bridges, overpasses and underpasses, is critical where they are susceptible to deterioration over time and when adjacent activities affect their stability, reducing the structural integrity and increasing safety concerns during continued operation.
Natural hazards such as earthquakes, floods and landslides can have huge impact on our highways making them unusable. Detecting these events or the impact from them is crucial to the operation of our assets, therefore monitoring areas at risk and providing data for safety warnings are extremely important.

This video provides helpful examples of monitoring installations on highways. It's important to keep in mind that each monitoring project is unique and requires a specifically tailored system. Our monitoring experts will be pleased to find the right solution for your infrastructure.

Case Studies