City Uses Proactive Technology to Assess, Treat Irving’s Road Conditions

The City of Irving is setting the foundation for roadway maintenance in the future. The city’s Traffic and Transportation/Street Department launched the NEXCO pilot program in Spring of 2023 to obtain information about Irving’s road system.

The purpose of the NEXCO program is to use sophisticated computer programs that take roadway images and processes these images to evaluate road surface conditions. The results of this information will help the Traffic and Transportation/Street Department more efficiently evaluate the maintenance needs of the road system, while at the same time enable staff to use the most cost-effective maintenance strategy.

This technology is yet another tool for the department, which launched a citywide pavement assessment program in 2014 to determine the pavement condition index for 1,440 lane-miles of Irving roadways. Since that study, the department has improved 72 miles of streets under its Road to the Future program — which also includes the Summer Overlay Program.

With rising maintenance and supply costs in mind, the NEXCO pilot program will ensure the city is diligent in how it directs its resources for maximum benefit.

Currently, the department is focusing on pavement crack sealing, pavement rejuvenation and pressure paving for maintenance of roadways.

The NEXCO pilot program uses a camera to video an entire road system and then sends back the visual data to a computer program that analyzes the surface of the roads. The program looks for cracks, from how wide to how deep they are in the road. From there, the department determines which of three methodologies it will use to seal the road and to ensure water does not penetrate through the cracks and into the pavement.

Over time, the program will ease the need for full-panel replacement and instead use lower cost maintenance methods to ensure drivers can conveniently and safely reach their destination.

Currently, roads south of SH 183 have been evaluated. Moving forward, the department will review city streets from SH 183 to SH 161 and then SH 161 north. The pilot program is set to run through 2025.

For more information on the city’s ongoing Road to the Future program, visit CityofIrving.org/Road2Future 