In the Tarn-et-Garonne, the postmen film the state of the roads during the rounds

Christophe is a postman in Albias, near Montauban. After loading letters and parcels into La Poste’s yellow van, he now has a new ritual: installing a camera on the roof of the vehicle. “I press the button to start and I can go on tour”, he explains, that day, to our film crew. And off he went for 54 kilometers on the roads of this small town of 3200 inhabitants. 120 streets and paths will be filmed in order to carry out an audit of the state of the roads. The images are then transmitted to Geoptis, a subsidiary of La Poste, which analyzes them.

The idea is to spot small damage before it becomes too big. “The objective is to manage to accompany the community to optimize the maintenance and investment budget in terms of roads. What must be remembered is that a small crack will become a large nest-of- hen. And it will be much more expensive to repair”, explains Jean-Baptiste Drechsler, director of Geoptis.

In Occitania, as in other regions, several municipalities have already called on the service of Geoptis. In the Tarn-et-Garonne, Albias is the first town in the department to carry out this audit. A study that has a price, 8000 euros. But for its mayor, the game is worth the candle because the diagnosis goes beyond the state of the roads.

All the public space is analyzed, the roadway, the sidewalks but also “traffic signs, rainwater, sanitation…”, explains Véronique Magnani. This allows you to have a global vision of the work to be carried out. The municipality can plan its maintenance expenditure over several years and thus better manage its budget.