Road monitoring is now also done with scooters. After the experimentation on traditional vehicles, the ANAS and MIT Senseable City Lab project launched in 2018 in order to exploit the potential of digital technologies to monitor the health of our infrastructures, sees the participation of Superpedestrian. This is the spin-off tech company of MIT of Boston that has designed LINK, the most advanced electric scooter in the sector thanks to the 73 sensors and 5 microprocessors installed on the vehicle.

The Senseable City Lab Consortium of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, directed by the Italian Carlo Ratti, is a multidisciplinary research center in which projects inspired by one goal are studied: to connect urban development with the immense amount of information collected from smart devices in cities. In several years of activity it has collected projects from all over the world. In 2017, the center developed a technology whereby the smartphones of individual motorists become "mobile sensors" for signaling the state of the pavement and road infrastructure (including bridges and viaducts).

ANAS in 2018 announced an agreement with the Senseable City Lab Consortium to test this technology along two motorway sections: the A90 Grande Raccordo Anulare of Rome and the A91 Rome-Fiumicino Airport. The technology makes it possible to exploit the data contained in the accelerometers present in every smartphone. "The frequencies of vibrations from smartphones could signal the need to carry out more in-depth surveys and checks in the field.

The novelty: now the infrastructures are tested with scooters

The method, already experimented with motor vehicles, is now tested for the first time using the technology of LINK electric scooters: thanks to the use of the data detected by the sensors inside the scooters in motion, it is possible, like a medical triage, to obtain a first photograph of the structural strength of the road network. Where problematic areas are found, more in-depth investigations are then carried out in a targeted manner. It is therefore a preventive and qualitative control of the road infrastructure carried out through the use of a LINK scooter in motion.

Matteo Ribaldi, Public Affairs and Business Development Manager LINK-Superpedestrian Italia, said: “The data allow us to better understand cities in all their complexity, study them and improve them. In recent years, attention to the safety of our infrastructures has grown and we, as a cutting-edge tech company in the transport sector, are proud to be able to support ANAS and be at the forefront in the implementation of an innovative method of prevention and surveillance of Italian infrastructures ".