Scott B.
Real Estate, Mapping, Inspections
United States
InsuredPart 107
360 Video & PhotographyAerial Photographyand 17 more
What this service involves
An aerial road survey records a length of road and its immediate surroundings from above: carriageway, footways, verges, markings, drainage, signs, street furniture, boundaries and levels. Flown as a photogrammetric survey it produces a scaled plan view of the corridor and a terrain model, so that a scheme can be designed on it or an existing layout recorded accurately before anything is changed.
It is worth being clear about what this is not, because the terms overlap and the difference is expensive to discover late. It is not a pavement condition survey in the regulated sense. In England, network level condition data on the motorway and trunk road network is collected under the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges standard CS 230, by survey vehicles that the standard requires to be accredited for use on that network, measuring rutting, texture depth, longitudinal profile, cracking and more. For local authority roads the data specification is PAS 2161, published by the British Standards Institution with the Department for Transport, under which providers have to demonstrate the performance of their collection technology before their data can be used in national reporting. Where a condition figure has to go into a national return, an accredited survey is what produces it.
What an aerial survey does well on a road is different work. Geometry, levels and layout for design. An inventory of what is physically there. A dated record of a site before, during and after works. The verges, embankments, drainage runs and structures alongside the carriageway that an instrumented vehicle driving the running lane does not look at. And lengths where putting a survey team on foot would mean traffic management.
Who hires drone pilots for this, and why
- Highway designers and civil engineers who need existing levels and layout for a junction, a footway, a crossing, a drainage scheme or a resurfacing.
- Local authorities and their term contractors, recording an asset or a site before and after works, where a dated record settles later questions cheaply.
- Utility and infrastructure contractors working in the highway, for whom a record of the surface before it was opened up is worth having.
- Developers and planning consultants, where an access, a visibility splay or a safety audit has to be demonstrated on a current survey rather than on an old drawing.
- Investigators, insurers and legal teams recording the layout and condition of a location after an incident, where the value is in the date and the completeness.
What to expect on the day
The constraint that shapes the plan is people who are not part of the operation, and a busy road is full of them. The rules differ by country and are usually what decides where the aircraft can be: in Europe, for example, flight over uninvolved people is not permitted at all in the open category for most aircraft classes, and for others a minimum horizontal distance from them applies. In practice this means the survey is planned around when the road is quiet, where the aircraft can sit laterally, and whether any traffic management is needed at all.
Ground control markers are placed on or beside the carriageway wherever the survey has to tie to a datum, and getting them down and surveyed safely is often the part of the day that takes the most planning. That is also the part most likely to need a short closure, rather than the flying.
Deliverables are normally an orthomosaic of the corridor, a terrain model, and a drawing in a CAD format carrying levels, cross sections and whichever features the specification asks for. As with any measured survey, the tolerance is worth agreeing before the flight rather than assessing after it.
Road Survey: frequently asked questions
Is this the same as a road condition survey?
No, and the difference matters if a figure has to go into a national return. Network level condition data in England is collected by accredited survey vehicles under a published standard, and for local authority roads there is a separate data specification under which providers must demonstrate the performance of their technology. An aerial survey records geometry, levels, layout and assets, which is different work.
Does the road have to close?
Usually not for the flying, which is one of the reasons this is commissioned. Placing ground control markers on the carriageway is the part that may need a short closure or traffic management, so it is worth raising when the survey is specified rather than on the day.
Can the aircraft fly over moving traffic?
That depends on the rules where the road is and on the aircraft being used. Restrictions on flying over and near people who are not part of the operation are among the tightest in the rules, and a live carriageway is full of people the operator does not control. Assume the plan will be built around that rather than through it.
Can it measure how worn the surface is?
It records what the surface looks like, at whatever detail the flying height allows, which is useful evidence. Rutting, texture depth and longitudinal profile are measured by instrumented vehicles against a defined specification, and a photograph of a road is not that measurement however good the photograph is.
What about lighting columns, signs, gullies and other street furniture?
Visible from above and commonly part of the deliverable, but ask for the inventory explicitly. Capturing assets to a schedule changes the flying height, the pattern and the processing, so it is a specification rather than something that arrives free with the imagery.
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