Critical infrastructure, often hidden from view
Culverts play a vital role in moving water beneath roads, railways and other infrastructure, helping to maintain flow and reduce the risk of flooding. While largely hidden from view, their performance can have a significant impact on the wider network when conditions begin to change.
Most authorities already inspect culverts as part of planned maintenance programmes, with additional inspections often following severe weather or reports of flooding. The challenge isn’t simply inspecting the asset—it’s understanding what happens before the next visit.
Water levels can rise, debris can begin to accumulate, vegetation can encroach and obstructions can develop gradually over time. By the time a problem is identified, the consequence may already be affecting surrounding assets, highways or nearby communities.
Building a clearer picture of changing conditions
SMART Shot AI helps authorities build additional visibility at these critical locations.
Using self-contained monitoring units that can be deployed wherever additional operational awareness is required, SMART Shot AI combines regular image capture with AI-powered review to create a visual record of how conditions develop over time. Operating independently through solar power and its own network connection, the units can be positioned in locations where permanent infrastructure may not be practical or where temporary monitoring would provide valuable operational insight.
Rather than relying solely on individual inspections, operational teams gain a clearer understanding of how a culvert responds before, during and after changing weather conditions.
Understanding performance, not just problems
Monitoring a culvert isn’t only about identifying when something has gone wrong.
Over time, SMART Shot AI helps authorities understand how each location behaves. Water levels may regularly rise following heavy rainfall before returning to normal within a few hours. Debris may accumulate before naturally passing through the structure, while vegetation may gradually begin restricting flow over a number of weeks.
Understanding these patterns helps build a clearer picture of an asset’s capacity, resilience and operational behaviour, allowing maintenance and inspection programmes to be informed by evidence rather than isolated observations.
Looking beyond the culvert
The impact of a culvert extends far beyond the structure itself. Reduced flow can increase water levels upstream, contribute to surface water flooding, affect nearby highways and place additional pressure on connected drainage assets. Equally, understanding that a culvert is continuing to perform as expected during periods of heavy rainfall can provide valuable reassurance and operational confidence.
By building a visual history of changing conditions, authorities gain another layer of evidence to support investigations, maintenance planning, funding decisions and wider network resilience.
Supporting more informed operational decisions
SMART Shot AI isn’t designed to replace inspections or engineering judgement. It complements existing inspection programmes by providing additional operational evidence between visits, helping authorities understand not only what conditions looked like on a particular day, but how they changed, how the asset performed and when intervention would deliver the greatest benefit.
As authorities continue moving towards more evidence-led and risk-based approaches to infrastructure management, understanding how critical assets behave over time may become just as important as understanding their condition.