Lucknow: Riding quality and comfort assessment of all expressways would be conducted in Uttar Pradesh. Having carried out the calibration of the special vehicle designed for evaluating the quality of the road carriageways, Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) would deploy the technology from Switzerland for long-term research and development. Having entered into an agreement with ETH Zurich and its corporate spin off company RTDT Laboratories, officials said as the first step calibration of Toyota Innova equipped with hardware, software, sensors and sophisticated technology has been conducted recently. “In Sep the calibration of the sensors installed in the special vehicle was carried out at Buddh International Formula 1 circuit in Greater Noida. The racetrack was used to prepare the base dataset for the vehicle which would be crucial to compare the quality of vehicle owner’s ride over the expressways,” said a senior officer. Estimated to cost around Rs 3.50 crore the Swiss company would act as a digital doctor on behalf of the authority to provide data analytics related to road geometry, pavement texture among other parameters. Officials said that ride quality is assessed by evaluating the road surface roughness. “For that finding the road stretch with the best quality surface was crucial. Hence Formula 1 track was selected to prepare the baseline roughness data. It would be used as a benchmark to improve the quality,” added the officer. The vehicle would also collect data from roads with bitumen surfacing and from highways that have concrete surfacing. Currently, three expressways developed by UPEIDA in Uttar Pradesh are operational including Purvanchal Expressway (341-km), Bundelkhand Expressway (296-km) and Agra–Lucknow Expressway (302-km). Moreover Gorakhpur Link Expressway (91-km) is in the finishing stages while Ganga Expressway (594-km) is also taking shape. Additional chief executive officer of the authority SP Shahi said, “We want to provide good riding experiences to the road users plying via the expressways. Having comparable data to evaluate the quality of different carriageways would be helpful in plugging the gaps.”
