BATT Vision uses a vehicle-mounted system incorporating high-resolution and high-speed cameras with GPS and gyroscope metadata sensors to continuously capture pavement conditions as the survey vehicle travels at 30 mph along the roadway.
In the final 3 days of May 2026, BATT scanned approximately 120 miles of roadway for the Brent Spence Bridge Corridor (BSBC) Project (“Project”) using BATT Vision to create a detailed Pavement Condition Index (PCI) assessment at a fraction of the cost of conducting a comparable manual inspection.
BATT Vision gives the BSBC Project engineers a faster, safer and more economical way to assess pavement, along with a roadmap for maintaining alternate routes throughout construction.
The devil is always in the details on a project this large. BATT Vision not only captures those details, including the type, severity and quantity of distresses, but it also gives project and agency personnel a blueprint for prioritizing maintenance to keep alternate routes in top condition throughout the construction period.
BATT Vision, powered by Tiger’s Eye Engineering, documented 53,636 georeferenced images across 133 directional roadway sections. An interactive online dashboard provides a location-specific record that analyzes pavement distresses and provides a photo record of roadway conditions, providing a powerful tool for ranking priorities in maintenance planning. The tool also filters items such as potholes, manholes and other recognizable shapes.
Keeping traffic moving during a massive construction project
BATT Vision’s combination of speed, detail, planning and accessibility is particularly important for a project where maintaining traffic is one of the biggest challenges on this high-traffic corridor. The Brent Spence Bridge Project carries I-71 and I-75 across the Ohio River between Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. Designed for approximately 80,000 vehicles per day, it now records about 160,000 vehicles daily. Recent project traffic analyses put trucks at approximately 17 to 18 percent of daily bridge traffic, making the corridor particularly important to freight movement.
The $4.4 billion Brent Spence Bridge Corridor Project will transform an eight-mile section of the interstate corridor through Ohio and Kentucky with a new companion bridge. Heavy construction began in March 2026, with completion of the companion bridge expected in 2031, and approach work substantially complete by 2033.
The new companion bridge will eventually carry traffic for I-71/I-75 only, while the existing Brent Spence Bridge, still considered structurally sound, will be rehabilitated and reconfigured to carry local traffic between downtown Cincinnati and Covington.
Planning for the roads traffic will seek
Drivers encountering construction delays increasingly rely on GPS navigation to find alternate routes, often moving onto nearby city streets, connectors and secondary roads. This naturally puts additional pressure on roadways not originally designed for heavy traffic.
The Walsh Kokosing Design-Build Team retained BATT to establish a comprehensive baseline record of roadways within a two-mile radius of the I-71/I-75 bridge entrance. The survey reveals pavement conditions before major construction traffic impacts occur and will help guide maintenance decisions as the Project progresses.
Seeing pavement in extraordinary detail
BATT Vision uses a vehicle-mounted system incorporating high-resolution and high-speed cameras with GPS and gyroscope metadata sensors to continuously capture pavement conditions as the survey vehicle travels at 30 mph along the roadway. GPS-labeled video frames are processed into images at specified intervals, eliminating duplication while providing continuous sampling of the pavement network.
The system’s capabilities can even extend beyond pavement surfaces. BATT Vision can also document roadway assets and adjacent infrastructure such as power poles, street signs, traffic signals, curbs, gutters and guardrails, providing agencies with an even more comprehensive record of roadway conditions and assets.
For the BSBC Project, the imagery was calibrated to evaluate approximately 12-foot-by-12-foot pavement areas, with each image tied to its GPS location. The images are then analyzed using machine-learning, deep-learning and AI technologies to identify the type, quantity and severity of pavement distress. The AI analysis used within the BATT Vision process is provided by Tiger Eye Engineering, with BATT providing planning, capture, calibration, quality control and engineering evaluation.
For this Project, the system was calibrated to produce PCI results in accordance with ASTM D6433, Standard Practice for Roads and Parking Lots Pavement Condition Index Surveys. The project report notes that the automated analysis is also subjected to quality-control review under the supervision of a professional engineer. The result is considerably more than a single PCI number, representing the entire pavement rather than a small sample.
Every analyzed location can be tied back to pavement imagery and geographic position. Distresses can be classified by type and severity, roadway sections compared, and the information organized into a comprehensive digital pavement record.
Putting more than 53,500 data points to work
BATT Vision converts thousands of individual pavement observations into a comprehensive planning resource for agency personnel. Through an interactive online visualization system, users can view the surveyed network on a map, examine individual roadway sections, retrieve pavement images and filter information by criteria such as distress type and PCI range. Data is downloadable into a spreadsheet.
The Project’s dashboard provides access all the way down to individual georeferenced survey images. Graphs and summary information provide the broader picture, while the underlying imagery provides the detail needed to investigate a particular location. That creates a much different pavement-management tool than a static inspection report.
BATT Vision's reporting and visualization tools are specifically intended to help owners and agencies evaluate and refine pavement treatment decisions over the life of the pavement. For the Brent Spence Bridge Corridor Project, that means the baseline survey can continue providing value throughout construction as the Project team considers how increased traffic may affect surrounding roadways and where maintenance resources can be most effectively directed.
Reaching roadways a manual PCI survey cannot
BATT can also perform traditional manual PCI surveys, and manual inspection remains appropriate for many smaller projects. But surveying a network of this size manually would require substantially more field time and labor. More importantly, some of the Project survey area includes interstate lanes, ramps, and other high-traffic locations where putting inspectors on foot would be dangerous, impractical, or prohibited.
High-definition imagery was collected along interstate mainlines, local thoroughfares, interchange crossings and planned detour routes. The vehicle-based system provided continuous coverage while reducing personnel exposure to live traffic. That makes it possible to assess a much larger pavement network more economically, more efficiently and in places where conventional manual PCI may not be a viable option.
From PCI to pavement decisions
While this new technology can collect and organize enormous amounts of pavement information, the next step is knowing what to do with it. BATT's engineers combine pavement condition analysis with experience in asphalt testing, mix development, field evaluation and forensic investigation. When additional information is needed, BATT can supplement BATT Vision with manual PCI, field measurements, core sampling, laboratory testing and other pavement evaluation methods.
The team can also use condition data to recommend appropriate maintenance, preservation or rehabilitation strategies. The BSBC Project Report, for example, includes a treatment-selection framework that considers both PCI and the mechanism contributing to pavement condition, not simply a numerical score. The final deliverable is not only a project dashboard but also a written report summarizing the survey methodology and outcomes.
The advantages go beyond cost.
Whether assessing a few critical roadways or an entire network, BATT Vision combines rapid data collection, comprehensive pavement analysis, and detailed, location-specific reporting in one powerful pavement-management resource. It can safely reach roadways that are difficult or impossible to inspect manually, document conditions with remarkable detail, and give pavement managers the information they need to prioritize maintenance and make better use of available resources.
The Brent Spence Bridge Corridor Project demonstrates that capability at scale: 133 directional miles scanned in three days, more than 53,500 georeferenced data points analyzed, and a detailed pavement record that will help guide maintenance decisions throughout eight years of construction. And BATT Vision delivers that level of information at a cost that makes comprehensive pavement assessment practical for roadway owners and agencies. It all adds up to better information, safer data collection, and smarter maintenance planning at a practical cost. At BATT, we call that a win-win.
This article was prepared by asphalt materials engineer Phil Blankenship, PE, MSCE. He and other members of the BATT Team work with agencies, producers, and contractors to evaluate asphalt mixture performance and extend pavement life. He has authored or co-authored numerous peer-reviewed papers on asphalt technology.
