Getting an accurate assessment of Greenville’s hundreds of miles of streets could have been a labor-intensive, drawn out process. Instead, Greenville has partnered with Ayden and Winterville to use new technology to quickly and efficiently accomplish the task

“We have contracted with a company called Transmap who is driving a specially outfitted van on every street in the city,” said Public Works Director Kevin Mulligan. “They will use a combination of photography and LIDAR to assess the condition of every road. This will enable us to get an accurate picture of what roads are in good condition and which ones need to be resurfaced.”

Technology in the van will be able to dig even deeper than that without having to tear up any roads. The LIDAR will be able to tell engineers which roads could be microsurfaced, which need resurfacing, and which roads need to be completely rebuilt.

Mulligan said, “When you are assessing roads, you can’t see beyond the surface without doing core samples. Even those only give us an accurate indication of the condition of the road in that spot. This van will give us an extremely accurate picture of all the roads, which will help us prioritize and plan our road repairs. We will be able to have full confidence that we are doing the appropriate repair for the condition of the road so that it will last for many years.”

Other benefits of the project include an inventory of other features of the roadways such as the location of manholes, signs, light poles, and trees. Cameras will extend the picture up to 50 feet beyond the roads. All of the information will be compiled into map files which can easily be overlaid with other data.

The Greenville Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), a coalition of local governments in Pitt county, established the project and, as such, is able to use State money to help fund the project. With a total project cost of about $315,000, Greenville will only be responsible for paying about $40,000 of its $200,000 share of the project – the State will pay the rest. Greenville, Winterville, and Ayden will all share the data collected. The information will also be made available to Greenville Utilities Commission for their planning purposes as well.

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