Sidewalk Condition Assessments
Get fast, accurate sidewalk condition assessments using LiDAR and AI. Capture hazards, defects, and ROW features for smarter municipal planning.
Accurate Data. Safer Sidewalks. Smarter Planning​.
Understanding the current condition of sidewalks, curb ramps, right of ways (ROWs), and pedestrian pathways is an essential task for asset managers. Municipalities are responsible for maintaining their infrastructure to prevent accidents, maintain safe walking environments for their residents, and deliver high levels of service to taxpayers. Traditional right-of-way (ROW) condition assessments and inspections have traditionally been performed by field survey crews and are generally time-consuming, labour-intensive, can pose safety risks, and reports are often inconsistent or subjective across teams or seasons. Eagle Engineering and Consulting offers a faster, more accurate, and safer approach to perform sidewalk and ROW assessments using advanced reality capture technology.
Using vehicle-mounted LiDAR systems, LiDAR-equipped backpacks, and fixed LiDAR hardware, Eagle performs high-precision Sidewalk Condition Assessments across entire urban and rural networks. Our mobile scanning technology quickly collects detailed measurements of surface irregularities, cracking, sidewalk wear, slope variations, encroachments, and elevation changes, often in a single pass. Sophisticated AI extraction tools allow our team to analyze the data collected and automatically identify sidewalk compliance issues such as tripping hazards, ramp violations, overgrowth, or clearance problems to help municipalities identify critical safety issues and prioritize repairs that align with capital project plans and budgets.
Each sidewalk condition assessment scan simultaneously captures all visible surrounding right-of-way features, including curb edges, benches, signage, light poles, fire hydrants, and tree canopies. This comprehensive approach to condition assessment scanning gives public works, engineering, and planning departments the ability to coordinate maintenance projects across departments. Assessments for sidewalks and tree inventories can use the same dataset to reduce the need for duplicate data collection, which frees up taxpayer dollars to support other municipal infrastructure asset projects and provide value to its communities.
Whether you’re an asset manager or town planner preparing for an upcoming accessibility audit, forecasting infrastructure investments for an AMP, or simply aiming to improve pedestrian safety, Eagle’s reality capture team delivers reliable, GIS-ready asset data you can trust.Â
Why Conduct Sidewalk Condition Assessments Using LiDAR and AI?
Mobile Comprehensive Surface and Asset Coverage
Objective, Measurable Results
Data collected using LiDAR isn’t subject to human interpretation and provides reliable, defensible data. AI and manual inspection processes scan extracted data to identify, measure, and classify potential issues such as ramp slope violations, raised slabs, ponding zones, clearance obstructions, surface defaults, and narrow pathways that don’t comply with accessibility standards.
Data Built for GIS and Planning Systems
Eagle can deliver your LiDAR datasets in the format required for your asset management systems, including shapefiles, GeoJSON, Excel, PDFs, or custom formats ready for ArcGIS, Cityworks, Cartegraph, and more. Give us the template you need, and we’ll export the data to match.
Validated Results with Precise Measurements
Each sidewalk is scanned, measured, and the data collected is then extracted, reviewed, and validated. This process provides detailed information, giving asset managers the required data critical to understanding the sidewalks’ current condition to support compliance tracking, and delivers objective data that supports capital planning decisions and maintenance forecasts.
Benefits of LiDAR-Based Sidewalk Condition Assessment for Municipalities
- Detect hazards and safety risks early to reduce accidents and complaintsÂ
- Comply with accessibility standards and meet compliance targets using documented, defensible data
- Improve coordination between sidewalk maintenance and ROW asset teams
- Create defensible capital plans using repeatable, objective measurements
- Enable cross-departmental data collection and collaboration using one unified dataset
Municipal-Use Cases
- Sidewalk and ROW surface and slope assessmentsÂ
- Curb ramp compliance analysis in compliance with the Accessible Canada Act (ACA)
- Tripping hazard detection caused by cracking, heaving, or vegetation
- Tree and sign encroachment into the pedestrian pathways
- ROW inventories that include poles, benches, furniture, fire hydrants, signs, and more
- Drainage and runoff analysis in sidewalk and curb areasÂ
Frequently Asked Questions
What data can be captured during a sidewalk condition assessment or right of way inspection scan?
Eagle’s advanced reality capture technology captures cracks, sidewalk surface wear, analyzes slope grades, calculates ramp geometry and path width, vertical clearance, and identifies obstructions. Visible ROW elements like signage, trees, street furniture, and fire hydrants are simultaneously scanned during a routine sidewalk assessment for cross-department use.
Is a LiDAR-based condition assessment better than traditional sidewalk inspections?
Yes. In most cases, conducting a sidewalk condition assessment using LiDAR and other reality capture technology can be significantly faster and safer than conducting manual field crew surveys. LiDAR also provides contextual extraction data, including auto-marked photographs and feature-specific dimensionality laid out in 3D. Â
Can this data help with accessibility compliance?
Yes. Our scans provide a detailed and permanent record/analysis of a sidewalk’s ramp slope, cross-slope, and widths to ensure accessibility compliance.Â
What formats do you deliver condition data in?
Our datasets can be delivered in the format needed to support your team, including Shapefiles, GeoJSON, KML/KMZ, Excel, GDB, PDF reports, and database exports. Our team will configure the outputs based on your asset management or GIS systems. Just tell us the template you need, and we’ll export the data set to match.
Can other departments use the same scan data?
Yes. Sidewalk condition assessments done using LiDAR also support ROW inventory, structural measurements, urban forestry, drainage analysis, and street furniture planning, without the need for additional scans.
Ready to Start Your Sidewalk Condition Assessment Project?
Eagle Engineering and Consulting is modernizing how sidewalks and ROW corridors are assessed, monitored, and managed.
Contact us to learn how municipalities across Canada are using reality capture technology to perform sidewalk condition assessments or to schedule a lunch and learn for your team.Â