Does Mobile Mapping Actually Pay for Itself?

Mobile mapping — vehicle-mounted LiDAR and imagery, backpack and handheld SLAM systems, and increasingly consumer-grade "pocket" LiDAR — is routinely marketed to cities and counties as a cost-saving technology. The published evidence supports a narrower and more conditional claim.

What the evidence supports well: mobile mapping substantially reduces field time and field exposure. In a federally referenced comparison of five roadway inventory methods, mobile LiDAR collected a complete feature set across 14.2 miles in 8 field man-hours, against 13 man-hours for 1.3 miles by robotic total station. The direction of effect is consistent across academic, state DOT and federal sources. This report sets out where the economics work, where they do not, and what a city or county should verify before investing.