LEWISTON – That huge, funky orange thing that might have caught your eye these last couple days: Its a roving road analyzer.

Tricked out with lasers, strobe lights and digital cameras, the million-dollar modified ambulance cruises all of Maine every two years, taking measurements of every road built with state funds, according to Department of Transportation technician Travis Dubois.

This week was L-A’s turn.

Lasers and on-board computers quantify cracks, ruts and roughness. Everything gets a pavement condition rating and that data helps determine which roads ought to be fixed next.

A 5 rating is perfect, 0 abysmal.

The vehicle, nicknamed ARAN, can travel the speed limit, up to 55 mph, and gets its share of gawkers.

Assistant technician and driver Jeff Wing doesn’t need a special license to pilot it, just a pristine driving record. He said he doesn’t dwell on how pricey the wheels are. Focus on that too much and he’d never leave the driveway.

(If he ever got into an accident, though, he thinks he’d quit.)

Wing and Dubois, who work for the Pavement Management Section of DOT, have seen all of Maine a couple times over.

They’re on the road from April to December, in the northern half of the state on odd years and the southern end on even years. Snow and rain keep the vehicle parked.

Strobe lights that flick six to eight times a second remove shadows so a pair of cameras hanging in back get a clear view of the road. Lasers above the rear bumper measure the depth of ruts.

Images from three cameras up front capture a moving 180-degree view of each road, useful, Dubois said, for people in Augusta who want to quickly look at something like a right-of-way or tree line in Calais, Presque Isle or anywhere without leaving the office.

Runways at the state’s 32 airports are also checked every two years, and annually the men drive 10 or 12 sites where researchers test new paving materials to give progress reports.

The state bought its first specialized vehicle to analyze pavement in 1989. Before then, 28 people around the state did what Dubois called “windshield surveys,” occasionally hoping out of their cars to take measurements.

It wasn’t a very uniform – or safe – way to do things.

Fewer than half the U.S. states use a similar automated system, said pavement management engineer Gene Uhaud. All the information collected is analyzed over the winter. Lists of roads that scored the worst are given to inspectors to verify and prioritize.

The vehicle is parked in an Augusta warehouse each night. Though the current model is brand new, the last few years the pair have averaged 25,000 miles a year.

Dubois said people ask about the orange ambulance whenever they stop for lunch or gas or a bathroom break. “I’ve even been sitting at a light and a guy walked up and knocked on the window.”

The last ARAN was yellow, an occasional safety hazard when people mistook it for a small school bus.