While activists and world leaders are preoccupied with the challenges of transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy, the carbon intensity of road infrastructure remains under reported, if at all. The fact that the average service life of roads is 10-15 years provides us all with a clear event horizon directly connected to the Paris Agreement in 2035 and 2050.
In most developing countries, expenditure on road maintenance is often below the required optimum maintenance needs, resulting in a maintenance backlog and loss of road assets due to deferred maintenance. Road users bear the cost of poor maintenance directly and should therefore be ready to pay extra for maintenance
As people journey to work post-COVID, road congestion is easing its way back into people's everyday lives, hindering travel with slower speeds and longer trip times. The vision of progress within public, private, and shared transportation modes lie in Mobility on Demand (MOD) and Mobility as a Service (MaaS) solutions.
The Waze navigation application already has a functionality to report road hazards and warn other users of the application. However resolving these road hazards required manual reports to road agencies through existing communication channels. Latvia’s agency in charge of road maintenance has gained access to the Waze report feed, as a result of which up to 70 % from total reports processed by the agency are generated by Waze.