Potholes in the UK have reached new depths

In 2023, the financial toll of pothole-related vehicle damage reached £474 million, with over 631,000 incidents recorded by the AA (the highest in five years). That’s a lot of damage!

Potholes cause disruption and financial headaches for everyone – commuters, delivery drivers, emergency services, and of course local councils. At a time when money is tight and UK roads are blighted with an average of 6 potholes per mile, the issue of potholes has degenerated into a serious problem, and serious problems need effective solutions.

Every pothole is a challenge for councils

It is clear that action needs to be taken. However, many local councils find themselves ill-equipped to manage the rising tide of road repair requests. There are several reasons for this:

  • Lack of funding. Everything costs money, and pothole repairs are no exception. You need to inspect the pothole to determine how much work is needed to repair it. You need to pay workers to drive to the pothole and cordon off the area. They may need to cut chunks out of the road to prepare the pothole for filling. They need to heat up replacement asphalt (health and safety) and apply it carefully into the pothole. They need to clear up loose material and compact the asphalt. And so on. As you can imagine, this is not a cheap or painless process.
  • Conflicting priorities. Unitary, borough, district, and town councils are being expected to do more with less. Pothole maintenance is on an already long list of priorities. With finite financial and operational resources, as important as road management is, where does it come in the priority order alongside social care, education, and waste collection?
  • Infrequent inspections. Councils are required to conduct regular road inspections, but these are often conducted monthly or annually depending on how busy a road is, and potholes have a tendency to appear gradually and then suddenly (e.g. after winter).
  • Different repair standards. Councils across the UK have different depth and width standards for defining whether or not a pothole is dangerous enough to warrant a repair. Some councils have adjusted their standards in order to save money!
  • Miserable UK weather. 2024 has been a particularly wet year so far. Potholes form when water seeps through cracks in the road, gets underneath the tarmac, and through erosion eventually displaces a large chunk of it. Since the UK gets a lot of rain, a lot more water gets into our roads. This gets worse in the winter as water freezes and causes more damage.
  • Potholes are not being identified. Councils only have liability for pothole-related damages if a report has been filed and they have not repaired it within a reasonable timeframe. This incentivises councils to NOT identify potholes themselves, placing the burden of identification and reporting on their citizens instead. As a result, only a very small proportion of drivers actually get compensation for pothole damage.

Reporting a pothole should be a quick and easy process

To meet the demands of this pothole pandemic, local authorities need to move away from legacy methods of working and adopt fully digital and agile technology solutions. An effective system for managing potholes should include as a minimum:

  • Rapid mobile reporting. It is not practical for council workers or citizens to remember where a pothole is so they can file a report. A mobile solution is needed so that potholes can be reported in real-time from a mobile device. The mobile application should function online and offline and allow for users to upload the exact location of the pothole, with the ability to take pictures so council workers immediately know how dangerous the pothole is.
  • Rapid and efficient processing. Reports sent in from a mobile device should be immediately processed in the local council’s database. Pothole reports should be categorised accordingly based on factors such as location, estimated size, and risk. Inspection and repair tasks should be prioritised based on severity (e.g. large and deep pothole) and location (busy or quiet road). Ideally, this whole process should be automated.
  • Rapid response. Once the report has been categorised appropriately, council workers should receive notifications of the report on their mobile devices with all the details they need, including the optimal route to the site. If they have multiple reports to manage during their shift, the mobile application should be able to generate an optimised route that covers as many tasks as possible during that shift. This would go a long way towards speeding up response times and improving efficiency, as well as reducing fuel costs.

My Council Services has a digital solution for potholes

Our software offers a modern, digital, and proactive approach that includes all of the above features. If you would like a demonstration of our pothole management capability, please get in touch through our Contact Us page or via info@abavus.co.uk