How vialytics Is Changing Roadway Asset Management

Episode Transcript

Mollie (Host)
Welcome back to {Brief}ly Speaking, the SEH podcast where we tackle the topics that matter most in the AEC industry. I'm Mollie Sabo, your host. Asset management is nothing new, but for many agencies, it still relies on periodic inspections, spreadsheets, and limited resources to understand what's happening across an entire roadway network. By the time issues are identified, they may already be more expensive to address. That's where vialytics comes in. Today we're exploring how vialytics uses roadway video and artificial intelligence to help agencies assess conditions, identify maintenance needs, and build a clearer picture of infrastructure health. We'll discuss how this platform helps agencies move beyond reactive maintenance, prioritize investments, support capital improvement planning, strengthen funding applications, and make more informed decisions about where their resources can have the greatest impact. Joining me today is Jen Desrud, SEH's Civil Regional Practice Center leader and a project manager with extensive experience helping municipalities plan, manage, and invest in critical infrastructure. She's overseen capital improvement planning, asset management initiatives, multimodal transportation projects, and infrastructure system evaluations, and even previously served as a city engineer for Burnsville, Minnesota. Jen brings both leadership and hands-on experience, helping communities turn data into actionable insights, prioritize investments, and make informed decisions. So Jen, welcome to {Brief}ly Speaking.

Jen (Guest)
Thanks, Mollie. I'm happy to be here today.

Mollie (Host)
I'm super excited to talk about this topic. It's such a fun tool that we have in our toolkit for our clients. And I think it's really a game changer for a lot of people. So I'm excited to dive in. So for our listeners who've never heard of vialytics, this is the first time that term is coming across their desk. What problem does it solve? Tell us a little bit about the system.

Jen (Guest)
Sure. So SEH is partnered with a company called vialytics, and they are an AI software company where they focus on pavement conditions. So the challenge is finding all of your pavement conditions and rating them and determining which pavements are in the worst shape, which ones are okay, and which ones are the best. Communities all over already have systems for doing that, but a lot of times it's sort of monotonous routine and takes a long time. So what vialytics does is it uses a cell phone, you prop it into the windshield of a vehicle and then turn it on and drive, and the software collects all the data for you. It takes pictures every 10 to 12 feet using high resolution imagery. And then using AI, it will then analyze those pavement surface features to determine what's the pavement condition, and typically it's a number system. So in the Minnesota area, that is typically a rating from zero to 100, but there's a number of different rating systems out there. So vialytics will use whatever system you are currently using. But what makes it so efficient and a great tool is that you eliminate the need to have a number of people walking every street with clipboards, taking pictures, and you just can drive each of the streets, maybe in the regular course of business and collect all of that data pretty quickly.

Mollie (Host)
That sounds extremely more efficient than sending a bunch of people out with a clipboard. And honestly, it just streamlines the whole process. So you mentioned it looks at pavement conditions. What kind of conditions is vialytics identifying in its program that tend to surprise agencies the most?

Jen (Guest)
Yeah, so it's kind of marketed as a pavement conditioning tool, and it does that. But while it's collecting those images, it's also looking at all of the surface features. So it's looking at traffic signs, it's looking at manholes, and it's finding when there's something off with those other pieces of infrastructure. So I think while the pavement condition is really exciting to a lot of agencies, when they get into it, they learn, well, I can get a report when a street sign has graffiti on it and I can send a crew out to go clean that up. Or if a tree branch is in the way of a sign, I can send a maintenance crew out to trim that tree branch back. So vialytics is collecting more than just the pavement condition, but also collecting anything on the surface. I mentioned manholes and hatch basins. So if your manhole is depressed into the pavement and could cause a problem that way, or if it's raised up, that's another thing that the vialytics software is going to note. And then in its dashboard, it kind of creates like a warning. These are the areas you might want to look at. So it's able to find problem areas and get your attention to them. When you've got a vast pavement network, hundreds of miles of streets to maintain, it brings people's attention and the maintenance crew's attention to what needs their attention right now.

Mollie (Host)
And I feel like some of those things are just in human error. We gloss over them. We don't recognize that it has graffiti on the sign or that the tree branch would be in the way because it's something that we are used to seeing or it just doesn't strike us as out of the norm. So having that AI to catch some of those smaller but still impactful situations is huge. That's amazing. With all of that, though, it sounds like you're kind of getting a lot of information. And one of the client pain points that we frequently hear is data overload, right? So how does vialytics help agencies move from we have all this information to we know exactly where to act first?

Jen (Guest)
Yeah, that's a great question because it is collecting thousands of photos and those photos are each available to the agency to look at whenever they want. But as it's assessing the pavement, it's creating that number system, like I had mentioned earlier, with the worst pavements being closer to zero, the best pavements being closer to 100. And then there's a dashboard and you can see your city as a map on the dashboard. And each of those street segments are color-coded. So if you see streets that are in the red, orange, you know, those are your worst pavements in your city. And if you see the ones that are green or yellow, those are better. And so after all this data is collected, you can see on a map really quickly where your problem areas are and where your pavement is really in good shape and that can help you with planning into the future. Also, just mentioning those other surface features. It highlights those on the map as well. So there's a filter, you can turn it on and off on the dashboard and see what you wanna see when you wanna see it. So while all the data's there, you might wanna focus in on, well, where are those signs with graffiti? Where are they on the map? And you can toggle that on and off and see it whenever you need to.

Mollie (Host)
Okay, that's good to know. You're not just getting an Excel spreadsheet with a download of data and having to sift through it aimlessly. It's really a streamlined program where you can highlight just the spots that are interested in right now, or you could see kind of the full picture too and make a roadmap there for how you want to fix things. If you have a client and you're trying to assess if vialytics might be a good option for them, or if a municipality is listening and they're thinking this could be good for us, are there specific signs, challenges, or goals that signal this tool will deliver significant value for them versus just more data?

Jen (Guest)
Yeah, I think this tool is valuable for any size city with any sort of pavement asset management. So most cities, counties, municipalities, any agency that owns streets or street network is going to benefit from being able to pretty quickly drive all of your streets up and down to get both sides and then have that snapshot in time of all of your data. So I'd say if your goal is to make sound decisions about how to put money into your systems, this is a good product for you because you are going to be able to reap the benefits right away where you see the map, you see where your problem areas are, you know to devote funds to the problem areas, and you know where you can hold off on putting investment. So I think that any city or any agency that owns a pavement network can benefit from vialytics.

Mollie (Host)
I'm glad you hit on the size difference for communities here and the benefits for both because I think when we often think about technology systems, implementing these softwares, you immediately go to the bigger communities, right? But small towns can truly benefit from this too because another thing that we're constantly hearing is "we don't have the workforce to go out and check all these, we don't have the time to train people to do all of these". And this really streamlines that process. It condenses it all down. It sounds fairly easy to use and to get set up. So all of that really lowers overall costs of overhead to get this data and information in and to just get a full picture, like you were saying. So I think that's important to note is that it is beneficial for really both ends of the spectrum.

Jen (Guest)
If I could add on that vialytics is not directly tied to SEH, it's its own company and that we're just partnering with them, but their pricing structure is based on number of roadway miles. So if you are a smaller city or agency, you don't have as many roadway miles, you're going to pay less for it. So it is scalable to the size of the city, how much their software costs.

Related Content: SEH and vialytics Partner to Offer AI-Powered Road Management Solutions

Mollie (Host)
Yeah, and I think that's such a cool thing that SEH is doing too, because we see it as such an awesome tool that we can help connect our clients with and just make their lives easier. It makes it easier for us to help with the long-term planning. So always looking for good partnerships like that. But I think that's perfect to note too, that it is scalable because that's an important factor when you're adding these kind of things in is the budget. We were talking about kind of that implementation and training piece of vialytics. So from a practical standpoint, what does implementation look like for a city or county? Is it a heavy lift or more of like a plug and play? How does that work?

Jen (Guest)
The municipality will have to get in contact with vialytics and get set up. vialytics provides as part of the package an iPhone, the mount to the vehicle, and all of the equipment you need. Because we're partnered with them, I have my own set of equipment, and so I can tell you just from personal experience, it's easy. It's a suction cup mount, and then you put the phone in your windshield. They have an external mount as well, but then you put this dashboard cover so that you don't get glare your dashboard. That's kind of one of the things. And then you turn on the phone and it walks you through. First step, put that cover on. Second step, start. And there's a few things. You want to make sure it's not raining. You want to make sure the streets are fairly clean. So a good opportunity is to do this after the street sweeping is done for the season. And so it's really straightforward. Once you hit start, it's now collecting your data as you go. And then once you're through and you get back to a Wi-Fi environment, it starts uploading. And then it's a few days before your data is available and the map is created. But it really is easy. There is a little bit of setup, but I have personally been a trial user and so I can tell you it's pretty straightforward.

Mollie (Host)
As long as someone has a driver's license, it sounds fairly easy to do. Once it's set up, you just get to roam. And so is this more of like a you do it once and then you have the data set or is it a reoccurring system? What are the options for that?

Jen (Guest)
Yeah, so it's a subscription based service. And so once you are subscribing, you can collect as much data as you want, you can collect it when you want. So all of that data will reside on the cloud, but it's the municipality's data, they own it. And so it is available for as long as you're a subscriber. And so I could say, you know, in the spring, street sweepers go through and you follow along and collect your data. In the fall, you might want to collect data again. You could collect data when there's a big construction project and you can collect it before and after the project. The data collection is unlimited.

Mollie (Host)
Perfect. So can you give an example of a client or agency and how they used vialytics?

Jen (Guest)
Yeah, so we have a couple in the Twin Cities Metro who are users. The city of Columbia Heights is maybe one of the first users in the Twin Cities Metro. They've been using it for a few years. If any of your listeners were at the City Engineers Association of Minnesota conference last winter, they spoke and talked about their experience with vialytics and how they use it, drive all the streets and collect the data, and then it informs their capital improvement programs. So that's one user. And then we partnered with the city of Brooklyn Park as our sort of trial. But when we were meeting up with vialytics, we wanted to sort of test the data ourselves. And so I asked the city if they would be willing to be a tester and from that test and from the accuracy and how well the program was, they ended up becoming a customer. So it's been really good for a couple cities and it's growing, you know, word of mouth is happening. It's a really great, easy, efficient way to collect all of that data.

Mollie (Host)
If an agency is on the fence about adopting a tool, they're not sure about the technology piece of it or how it could be useful to them and serve them in the best interest, what do you think is the biggest misconception holding people back?

Jen (Guest)
Well, I think people are concerned about the cost. They don't know what it will cost, and it is customizable because every community is different. The number of miles of streets they have is different. So I would say if you're worried about it or not sure, you could reach out. We can get you connected with vialytics. They can start to talk through the cost and the different options for the pricing. Like I had mentioned earlier, it is scalable, so a very small community, it could be very affordable for them as well as a really huge community with lots of lean miles. It might be really efficient for them, so that cost benefit might work out in their favor. But I think people are not sure about the cost, and then it is a subscription-based program, so it's an annual fee to have the data, have the phones, have all of that. That makes it helpful for budgeting, you know what it's going to cost from year to year, and then you have the data going back in time. So the longer you have the data, you can track your progress towards improving your pavements over time. So I think pricing is something that people always ask about first and can't really mention what that is on a podcast because it is just unique to every community.

Mollie (Host)
Yeah, I know it's not a one-size-fits-all. But if a community is listening and they do have questions about how vialytics could serve them or how to get in contact and kind of figure out that pricing or service that they are looking into, what is the best way for them to get a hold of you?

Jen (Guest)
Yeah, so they can e-mail me. I'm Jen Desrude. So jdesrude@sehinc.com.

Mollie (Host)
Well, that's all I have for today in our convo about vialytics. So thank you so much for walking us through this, kind of telling us a little bit more about the program and really how it's changing the ways that agencies approach asset management. For cities, counties, and transportation agencies facing aging infrastructure, limited budgets, growing maintenance needs, vialytics demonstrates how better information can lead to more productive planning, more efficient use of resources, and stronger long-term asset performance. If that's something that sounds interesting to you, reach out to Jen or vialytics. They can help get you guys set up. Thanks for tuning in to {Brief}ly Speaking, and we'll be back shortly with more conversations that help communities plan, maintain, and invest in the infrastructure that keeps them moving forward.