If you live in Spokane Valley, you may have noticed a white van with the letters “IMS” travelling slowly through your neighborhood. Well, it’s not the ice cream man and it’s not a washed up motivational speaker looking for a place to park his van down by the river.
IMS a company working under contract with the City of Spokane Valley to assess the condition of the city’s roadways.
The vehicle, which is equipped with cameras and lasers (lasers! cool!), is collecting data from about 167 miles of the city’s 438 miles of roadways, looking for signs of deterioration and distress in the road surface to help analyze and rate the condition of the roads.
The data collected becomes part of the City’s Pavement Management Program. Updated biannually, the PMP serves as a planning tool to determine which roadways are in need of attention, what types of maintenance are required to help prolong the life of the road surface, and maximize the community’s investment in its roadways.