Contribution of geomatics to the study of the road degradation case of the East-West highway, Constantine.

Abstract

Before any maintenance or rehabilitation work is undertaken on a highway section, a prior assessment of pavement condition is essential. This initial diagnostic phase, although crucial for strategic intervention planning, remains a demanding and time-consuming process, traditionally carried out by trained personnel conducting on-site visual inspections to identify and locate surface distresses. This study proposes an innovative alternative based on the use of video sequences captured with a smartphone, synchronized with embedded navigation data (GPS). Through visual interpretation of georeferenced images, this method enables the detection of surface defects and the production of a detailed degradation map. The geospatial diagnosis was applied to a representative segment of the East–West Highway, between kilometer points 152 and 170, located in the wilayas of Constantine and Mila, serving as a decision-support tool for targeted and optimized interventions. The anomaly detection phase is conducted manually through the analysis of video-extracted frames, each associated with a precise geographic location. This approach provides sub-decametric accuracy in defect localization, meeting the requirements of operational road maintenance and management systems.