Engineering Firm Benesch Revolutionizes Pavement Inspections with AI and Digital Twins

• 2 October 2025
• Construction Focus
• 1201 Views

AI is actively redefining infrastructure management. A renowned engineering services firm based in the US, Benesch, is leading the charge, using a potent combination of digital twins and machine learning to make pavement inspections faster, safer, and significantly more accurate.

For decades, assessing the condition of roads, bridges, and airport runways has been a time-consuming, expensive, and often hazardous task. Inspectors had to manually walk or drive over surfaces, photograph cracks, and painstakingly analyze damage.

This traditional approach is expensive and takes a very long time, especially with large-scale assessments. Besides, the task is risky for workers when operating in high-traffic or dangerous environments. The inspection will also cause lane closures and restricted access, resulting in traffic congestion. Most importantly, manual inspection has high potential for human error, leading to missed critical defects.

Benesch’s new methodology centers on the creation of a digital twin—a live, digital representation of a physical asset. This twin is continuously synchronized using data from sensors and continuous surveying, providing a near real-time status of the pavement’s working condition. This allows engineers to visualize the asset, perform analysis, and generate insights to predict and optimize its performance.

By integrating machine learning with this digital twin data, Benesch can now automate the inspection process. The results are dramatic, promising a significant upgrade to how critical assets are maintained:

• 75% Faster Inspections: Assessments for airports, highways, and bridges can now be completed in a fraction of the time.
• Enhanced Worker Safety: The removal of inspectors from high-risk, high-traffic environments minimizes potential hazards.
• Improved Accuracy: AI ensures reliable and consistent crack detection, avoiding the oversights of manual checks.
• Minimal Disruptions: Airports and roads can remain fully operational during assessments.
• Significant Cost Savings: Benesch estimates expected savings of $144,000 USD across the inspection of just 100 future airports, driven by reduced labor expenses.

Benesch’s ambition extends beyond individual projects. The firm is working to create a scalable smart pavement detection application to benefit cities, states, and industries worldwide, paving the way for smarter maintenance decisions and more sustainable infrastructure.

• Digital Twin
• iTwin
• Bentley Systems
• iTwin Capture
• Benesch