Method of characterizing the condition of a road

A method of characterizing condition of a road along a route travelled by a user of the road using a vehicle, by use of a three-axis accelerometer and a geolocation sensor, comprising steps of:

• a) measuring along the route, acceleration representing roughness of the route of the user of the road along three axes with the three-axis accelerometer, measuring position and speed of the user of the road by the geolocation sensor, and storing in a database a measurement aggregation in a predetermined time window, ranging between 0.05 s and 0.25 s, of the acceleration measurements including accelerations representing roughness of the route;
• b) determining vibrations generated by roughness of the road including at least one vibration component corresponding to a sum of three variances of the acceleration measurements on the three axes of the three-axis accelerometer from the measurement aggregation in the predetermined time window, by disregarding from the acceleration measurements effects of travel speed of the user of the road by:
• i) when the user of the road rides a bicycle, determining the vibrations by using the acceleration measurements for a predetermined speed range;
• ii) when the user of the road rides a motor vehicle or a motorized two-wheeler, determining the vibrations by dividing the measured acceleration by a baseline that is a function of speed of the user of the road;
• and
• c) characterizing the condition of the road by an analysis of the determined vibrations.