‘Crowdsourcing’ aids Boston’s effort to detect potholes

Mass Innovations, From The Beacon, June 2012

The development of an automated means of reporting potholes on Boston’s streets via smartphones is nearing fruition, thanks in part to a process in which scientists and engineers competed for the chance to help overcome key technical obstacles.

This approach, known as “crowdsourcing,” provided Boston with a relatively inexpensive means of acquiring intellectual property and making use of technical expertise that over time should reduce the city’s road-maintenance costs, according to Nigel Jacob, a member of Boston’s Office of New Urban Mechanics.

The expense to the city in developing, testing and refining the pothole-detection system is estimated at $80,000. The system will enable motorists to set their smartphones to automatically detect potholes and other road features that could evolve into potholes. The data that is captured is time-stamped and attached to a GPS coordinate; all the driver has to do is press a button on the smartphone to upload the information. A server will then use algorithms to decipher the potholes from other indentations reflected in the data.

“This is really about road health, and the network of roads that the city manages,” Jacob said. “There’s a lot of city money that goes into road repairs, and general engineering fixes to the road system over a year. … Finding ways to do a better job of understanding where the problem roads and areas are is pretty critical to us.”

While Boston residents often use the city’s Citizens Connect program to report potholes by phone or text, they are less likely to manually report the rough patches of pavement that are likely to become potholes over time. One of the goals for the automated system is to create what Jacob terms “a real-time heartbeat of the conditions of our streets.”

“Potholes cause all kinds of secondary issues, some of which are financial, and some of which are eroding-the-trust-in-government problems,” Jacob said.

The crowdsourcing competition, facilitated by a private company, offered a total of $25,000 in prize money. The prize money ended up being shared among three contest entries: a mathematician and his students, who developed the algorithms that decipher the data being transmitted via smartphone; a programmer who created what Jacob described as a more robust software code; and a Somerville-based group called The Sprouts that tested the technology’s ability to distinguish between different sizes of potholes.

[A video posted on YouTube shows members of The Sprouts driving down a busy thoroughfare in Boston’s Charlestown section, intentionally hitting potholes. Moments later, team members rush into the street and used tennis balls to gauge the potholes’ dimensions. A Boston patrolman questions the testers, who assure him that the testing has been authorized by the city.]

Jacob suggested that over time, the sensor technology could be used not only by Boston’s immediate neighbors, such as Quincy and Brookline, but also by other major cities in the United States and Europe. The emphasis, he said, would likely be on the swapping of technologies, rather than the charging of licensing fees. Other cities, he said, may develop street-related applications of their own that Boston lacks, and vice versa.

The use of smartphones, he added, could also be applied to enhancing conditions for alternative modes of transport, such as bicycles and wheelchairs.

For more information, contact Nigel Jacob at (617) 635-3518.