International Journal on Perceptive and Cognitive Computing (IJPCC) Vol 8, Issue 1 (2022)

Design and Development of a Pothole Tracking System

(PotAlert) using Web Progressive Application (WPA)

Aerina Sofea Rosli, Maryam Roslan, Azlin Nordin

Department of Computer Science, Kulliyyah of Information and Communication Technology (KICT),
International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), 53100 Gombak Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
[email protected].

Abstract— Potholes and deteriorating road conditions are seen as a public disturbance. This paper presents
the design and development of PotAlert, which is a progressive web application (PWA)-based pothole
tracking system. The application was developed to encourage road users and the authorities to
communicate and exchange information concerning the presence of potholes on the road. The purpose of
the application is to give road users a way to help the authority enhance public safety. This is to ensure that
problems regarding potholes in Malaysia’s road infrastructure are effectively addressed. From the
perspective of the authorities, the system shall aid in the automation of management reports, ensuring that
they are arranged and kept properly in order to efficiently handle work orders and contact road workers. As
an outcome of the project, the PotAlert system was deployed and tested within its constraints setting. Due
to the difficulty in acquiring actual data during the pandemic, the system was evaluated using dummy
pothole data. The system needs to be further improved and evaluated in the future using actual data and
settings.

Keywords—pothole detector, pothole tracker, potholes

be decreased if they are spotted and reported in a timely

I. INTRODUCTION way [18].
The development of any application is usually based on A key reason for the presence of unpatched potholes on
the need to solve the problems that humans face in their the road is due to the information gap between the public,
daily lives. In this age of the digitized world, a lot of the ways who travel on bad roads, and relevant authorities, which are
of human’s lives have changed. With how rapidly the world in charge of road repairs. PotAlert, a pothole tracking and
is progressing, almost every aspect in exchanging, reporting system was created with the goal to ease
communicating, and storing data has shifted dependencies communication and information exchange between road
towards the internet. Moreover, humans have become users and authorities regarding the presence of potholes on
increasingly reliant on services that allow them to convey the road. The primary objective of the design and
their needs at their fingertips. This includes the need to fix development project is to derive a proof-of-concept to
one of road users’ most persistent problems on the road, demonstrate the viability of a pothole detection system that
which are potholes. adopts Progressive Web Application (PWA) technology to
Potholes are major indicators of structural flaws in make use of smartphone features.
asphalt roads, and diagnosing them effectively is one of the The PotAlert utilizes the support of PWA for the
most critical challenges in determining proper asphalt- development. PWA is among the latest innovations in Web
surfaced pavement maintenance and repair procedures [10]. development, which attempts at making the user
Malaysia, as a rapidly developing country, relies on the road experience the same as in the native mobile app [15]-[17].
as its primary mode of transportation. It is stated that an One of the characteristics is that the client-side of the PWA
average of more than 70 motorcyclists are killed on the road employs web service calls to load and render content,
every week due to bad road conditions [1]. To support the exactly like native applications [15]. WPA also allows the
statement, a study had also shown that the majority of fatal utilization of all of the device's functions including the GPS,
crashes of motorcycles occur along straight road sections as camera, and sound, as well as the device's notification
stated in [2]. system.
Poorly maintained roads can cause accidents mostly due PotAlert uses the public's road experience to alert the
to the fact that they create hazards to drivers. In many relevant authorities about potholes conditions to flow
instances, a driver may attempt to avoid a certain situation, seamlessly between the two parties. The system also allows
like a pothole or pooling water, which could cause serious the road users to mark the pothole location by providing the
accidents. The amount of damage caused by potholes can pothole image, or simply by providing the pothole location.

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International Journal on Perceptive and Cognitive Computing (IJPCC) Vol 8, Issue 1 (2022)

To ensure that the road users are able to provide accurate criticality, Waze users in Selangor reported 52,295 potholes
and useful information, they are also given the ability to between January 2019 and September 2020 as reported in
make a remark and assign a severity level to the potholes. [11].
The road drivers then can check and display the report To report a pothole in Waze, users need to choose a
status and any updates by the authorities. The authority, on pothole and submit it to the app. The system matches the
the other hand, may generate a dynamic report with report to the road owner, who can either be the local council
visualization and update the pothole report status based on or JKR. In order to avoid duplicated reports, the system
the pothole maintenance activity. The authority has the tracks the reports and sends the information to the
ability to designate any specific road teams for road repairs. respective road owner. When four to five reports of the
This paper is structured as follows. The related work on same pothole are received, it is considered a valid report.
the pothole tracking system is presented in Section 2, and The strength of the app is it mainly works as a navigation
the PotAlert system development methodology is detailed app, which is also integrated with pothole reporting
in Section 3. The technologies employed to develop PotAlert features. The app provides voice command integration
are described in Section 4, and the stakeholders involved in features, which allows hands-free reporting. However, the
PotAlert are described in Section 5. In Sections 6 and 7, the app needs to be downloaded to be used and Waze only has
system's characteristics, as well as its limitations and a one-way communication as the complainant does not get
constraints, are outlined. In the subsequent Section 8, any response [3].
future work for PotAlert is included, and finally, the
conclusion is highlighted in Section 9. B. i-Tegur
The following system under consideration is the i-Tegur
II. RELATED WORK application, which is also accessible in the Google Play Store
Based on Kim and Ryu [10], the existing pothole detection and the Apple Store. The application was developed under
methods in the literature can be categorized into (1) the purview of the Malaysian Ministry of Housing and Local
vibration-based methods – where accelerometers are used Government. The i-Tegur is a mobile application that
to detect potholes, (2) 3D reconstruction-based methods- connects the public with local governments, particularly to
which can either be using a 3D laser scanner, stereo vision, make complaints or raise concerns that impact their
or visualization using Microsoft Kinect sensor and (3) vision- residential areas. Users may also make complaints about
based methods – which can include 2D image-based or parking, reckless rubbish disposal, drain obstruction, open
video-based approaches. burning, and other issues, in addition to potholes and
For this project, the first category of the classification i.e. broken lighting. To make a complaint, the user must first
vibration-based method was adopted due to the project select a category and then take a photo of the issue. After
scope and constraints. An investigation of earlier existing that, the user provides a short description of the complaint.
systems that are comparable to the proposed system was The user location is automatically detected by the
carried out in order to determine the strengths and application. Once the complaint is submitted, the user
shortcomings of the current system, as well as areas that receives a notification informing them that the complaint
might be enhanced and improved further. has been sent to the relevant city council or authority to
review. The details of the complaint can also be viewed from
A. Waze their homepage.
The first such current system examined is Waze, an app However, there is a lack of feedback status from the
that allows users to report potholes on the road. Waze is relevant authorities for the complaints that had been
accessible at https://www.waze.com/ and also in Google submitted to the system. Furthermore, according to the
Play Store and Apple Store. Waze is a GPS navigation mobile analysis of the users' reviews of the application in the Play
application that assists road users in getting from one point Store, some users reported that the application took too
to another. In addition, the application also has a feature long to launch. It becomes a hassle when they are driving
that allows users to report potholes that they encounter and have to launch the application. Some users also
along the road. complained that the application was difficult to use and that
The state government of Selangor saw an opportunity t re is no option to retrieve photos from their phone gallery.
and potential with the application and proceeded to This complicates things because the users cannot directly
collaborate with the traffic and navigation application, upload the picture while driving. Aside from that, the review
Waze, in order to help drivers and motorists to alert other comments indicated that there were too many functions in
road users on the location of potholes. Currently, a database the application, yet most of them did not perform well [4].
system on local roads is maintained by the Public Works
Department (JKR) and local councils. To emphasize the

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C. Real-Time Arduino-Based Depth Sensing for Road conditions, which aids drivers in avoiding potholes on the
Condition Monitoring road. The system analyzes data from users' photos and
Another current approach is Real-Time Arduino-Based locations to determine road surface conditions. Potholes
Depth Sensing for Road Condition Monitoring, which and other significant road surface irregularities are
combines a device with an Android-based application [5]. discovered from the photos using a geotagging approach
The device uses vibration-based-road condition detection, and the GPS.
which consists of an Arduino-based sensing module. First, The authors also mentioned in the research that a
the Arduino-based sensing module is designed to evaluate simulator was utilized to detect the potholes using pothole
the road conditions in real-time and the evaluation result is video data recorded by a black-box camera. The width,
sent to the smartphone via a wireless medium. While the height, and variation of the pothole may be determined
smartphone receives the data from the sensing module, the using the simulator. The report, on the other hand, does not
designed android-based application marks the position with specify how these recordings were utilized to discover the
abnormal road conditions on Google Maps by utilizing the potholes.
Global Positioning System (GPS) of the smartphone. As a
consequence, drivers may alter their commute routes, and F. Automatic Pothole and Speed Breaker Detection using
the government can use the pothole locational data for Android System
future road repair and development. This study describes a vibration-based method for
The advantage of this approach is the automatic sensing automatic detection of potholes. This study describes the
of potholes without having to interact with smartphones monitoring of road conditions using Android's built-in
while driving. Potholes can be marked automatically on the accelerometer, which captures 3-axis acceleration [14]. The
Google Map and displayed along the map route. However, accelerometer data is analyzed to recognize the pothole
the drawback to this method is the drivers need to reach the type and severity level. The pothole location was captured
pothole in order to detect it [5]. The approach also using Android's built-in GPS. This approach is used by
necessitates the use of an extra device, which must be linked Rishiwal and Khan [14] to locate potholes by monitoring the
to the smartphone in order for the functionalities to be z-axis acceleration, which changes rapidly when a pothole is
completely employed, hence increasing the cost of the encountered.
solution. The technique for detecting potholes and speed
breakers has a high accuracy of 93.7%, which is a benefit of
D. Roadway State Monitoring System (RSMS) this study. The results, however, were compared to a
In this work [12], a method for detecting and localizing manual inspection of potholes and speed breakers on the
road potholes is presented, with the goal of collecting data same route.
on road potholes by integrating the use of the
accelerometer, GPS, and compass contained in G. Gap Trap
smartphones running the Android operating system. The Gap Trap detects and reports potholes automatically
information about the prospective potholes detected by the using sensors on smartphones. Gap Trap uses standard
application is analyzed, categorized, and stored in the JSON format to post detected potholes to a publicly
system. For pothole detection, the pothole information available interface [18]. The android smartphone utilized is
comprises latitude, longitude, GPS accuracy, vehicle speed, equipped with an accelerometer sensor that continually
accelerometer acceleration, and compass azimuth. The delivers the force of acceleration felt on its three dimensions
pothole information also includes the system's date and in meters per second squared in the form of x, y, and z
time, the analyst who categorized the pothole, the rating variables. The accelerometer is continually polled to detect
according to the specified scale, the kind of pothole, and the the device's acceleration. When a pothole detection is
detection analysis. triggered, the GPS sensor is queried to identify the pothole's
The method enables smartphone-based assessments of position [18]. Google MAP API is also used to display the map
the road's physical condition and infrastructure. location of the detected potholes. However, the search for
Nonetheless, when detecting potholes, the device must be pothole data is currently not particularly straightforward or
positioned in a restricted manner in the direction in which difficult.
the vehicle is going. If this is not done, the accuracy of the
pothole detection may be affected. H. Real-Time Pothole Detection
The research provides a mobile sensing system for
E. Android-based Pothole Tracking System pothole detection that makes use of the accelerometer in
The work [13] presents the development of an Android- Android OS devices [19]. This research compared four
based application for detecting and reporting road surface pothole detection methods based on accelerometer data

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for several Android OS-based devices. Algorithm testing that PotAlert shall be focusing on leveraging the PWA to
revealed the optimal setup for each selected algorithm. utilize the features on the smartphone in order to detect
Their evaluation with a true positive rate of up to 90% potholes.
employing real-world data was presented. Nonetheless, in
terms of application development, the study [19] did not 1) Planning: Requirements elicitation was performed
provide sufficient information on the implementation to identify the functional requirements and quality
phase. requirements of the system. The technique that has been
used was document analysis. The evaluation was done
III. METHODOLOGY through existing documents and journal articles to identify
the strengths and weaknesses of the existing systems. The
For this project development, the spiral model was
collected data was then organized to be listed as the
adopted as it is most suitable for the project that will require
potential new system requirements. Refer to Section 6.0 for
continuous enhancement of requirements (see Fig. 1). The
the finalized features obtained from the requirements
spiral model defines iterations, which comprise a set of
elicitation process.
repeating activities. In each iteration, four main activities are
2) Design: The initial design for the system has been
conducted, which include planning, design, development,
determined in the first iteration. This crucial step was done
and testing.
to ensure that all the system requirements are achievable to
reach the project goals. The use case diagram was designed
first to visualize the interaction of the actors with the
system. From the use case diagram, the actors involved
were identified. Refer to Section 5.0 for the detailed
elaboration of the actors involved and Section 6.0 for the
use case diagram. Moreover, the functions of the system
were elaborated further in the form of use case
specifications. In addition, the activity diagram of the system
was then made for the road user and authority. Finally, the
user interface has also been designed for the road user and
the authority to visualize the system better.
3) Development: The development phase of the first
iteration was focused on the road user. The high-fidelity
prototype was developed using Figma as shown in Fig. 2 and
Fig. 3.
Fig. 1 Spiral model methodology [6] 4) Testing: In the first iteration of testing, the scope of
testing was identified. The testing was intended to cover the
The same set of activities is then repeated for all the black box functional testing of the system. The objective of
iterations until the completed software is built. By using this the testing is to ensure that the requirements are satisfied
model, more features can be added systematically as the and the system is made for its intended purpose.
project develops. This way, there will be a control
mechanism in place for the development phases.
In this project, three iterations were planned and
executed. Each of these iterations will be elaborated on in
the following paragraphs.

A. Iteration 1: Preliminary stage

In the first iteration of the spiral methodology i.e. the
preliminary stage, the time and effort estimation for this
project were defined and the tasks were distributed
amongst the developers. In addition, the requirements for
the system were gathered through requirement sources
including stakeholders, existing systems, and documents.
Initial requirements were derived by analyzing the similar
solutions and reviewing system-specific documents such as
technical reports of similar systems. The scope and
objectives of the system were also identified. It was decided Fig. 2 Figma prototype design-1

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C. Iteration 3: Final refinement stage

The spiral methodology's third iteration featured the final
refinement for all phases. The requirements were validated
against the developed system according to the latest
requirements list. All final changes for the system were
conducted in this iteration. Finally, the completed system is
tested.

1) Planning: The system's scope has been defined to

cover primarily two stakeholders in this iteration: the road
user and the authority. After significant deliberation and
preparation, this was chosen.

2) Design: Based on the user interface and the high-

fidelity prototypes that were built during the first and
Fig. 3 Figma prototype design-2 second iterations of the design phase, the front-end parts
for the road user and the authority were developed using
B. Iteration 2: Refinement stage HTML and CSS.
The second iteration of the spiral methodology involved
additional requirements elicitation techniques. Here, the 3) Development: In this iteration, the PotAlert system
tools and languages used for the initial system development was developed for both the road users and the authority.
were identified. In addition, the database design and the The systems were developed separately using the tools and
data dictionary were created during the design phase. Aside languages shown in Tables I and II. The system was
from that, the user interface for the authority was designed. developed based on the requirements that have been
defined throughout iterations one and two. The prototype
1) Planning: The requirements were further refined that was made in iteration one and two was also used as a
from the first phase by using questionnaires. The guideline during the development.
requirements elicitation that has been applied was
observation and brainstorming. The observation was done 4) Testing: In this iteration, test case specifications are
to collect information on the processes, inputs, and outputs prepared accordingly. The system was tested based on the
of the system. On the other hand, brainstorming was done requirements that have been defined in the requirements
by analyzing existing systems like Waze and i-Tegur to adopt list. However, the focus of the test was prioritized by the
relevant requirements for PotAlert. Finally, the tools and criticality of the requirements. Dynamic unit testing was
languages that are required to build the system were done throughout the development between the developers
finalized accordingly as listed in Tables I and II. using stubs and drivers. This was done to test several
functions during the development process. It was helpful
2) Design: In this iteration, an Entity-Relationship when other parts of the system are not completed yet. The
Diagram (ERD) was created to cover all possible entities that results of the test were recorded, and any defects were
were relevant for this phase of the system. A total of seven fixed accordingly. As stated in the previous iterations, the
entities have been identified for the PotAlert database testing only covered functional requirements.
including road crew, authority, pothole, road user, progress,
and authority report. In addition to the ERD, a complete data IV. ACTORS IN POTALERT TRACKING SYSTEM
dictionary representing each entity was produced. The
attribute names and their types were recorded in the data This section describes the actors involved in the PotAlert
dictionary. system that are (1) the road users, and (2) the authority.
Their roles will be elaborated on in the subsequent
3) Development: The development phase of the paragraphs.
second iteration was focused on the authority perspective. A. Road Users
The high-fidelity prototype was developed using Figma. The road users can either be a driver or a passenger of a
vehicle. The road user can report potholes to the authorities
4) Testing: In this phase, a preliminary test case was when they encounter one on the road, in which they can
prepared for the authentication module to validate the user capture the image or the scene of the pothole or simply give
login credential. the location of the pothole, and submit it through the

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system just by using their smartphones. Road users can then C. Manage Pothole
view the submitted using their browsers regardless of The authority interacts with this manage pothole
whether it is on a smartphone, tablet, or laptop. This is use case. Pothole complaints filed by road users can be
possible as PWA may be accessed from any browser. Not viewed by the authorities. The authority can utilize this
only that, the road users can also view the feedback of the report to update the status of the report and offer feedback
reported pothole status. to the road user. Any road crew can be assigned to the
pothole.
B. Authority
PotAlert allows the authority to view a detailed report of
D. Manage Pothole Progress
potholes in the form of visualizations and tables. The details
For this use case, the authority can view a list of potholes
in the report are date, location, status, severity, road crew,
to be fixed and their locations. Once the pothole has been
image, and pothole status. PotAlert also provides the
patched, the authority is able to update the pothole
authority with the ability to print the report. The authority is
progress status.
also allowed to update the status of the pothole and assign
potholes to the responsible road crew for maintenance
E. View Report
purposes.
The authority can view the overall list of reported
V. POTALERT FEATURES potholes and generate a report from the list.

The system offers essential features (see Fig. 4), which F. Visualize Report Data
support the interactions between the road users and The report data visualization includes categories of
authority with the system. reports based on (1) weekly reports, (2) pothole severity,
and (3) progress in order for the authority to have a better
A. Login and Logout knowledge of the data's patterns, trends, and groupings.
The road users and the authority are the main system's See Fig. 13. This information can be used by the authority to
stakeholders. To engage with the system, users must first make decisions about any future strategic planning or
log in with their registered username and password. improvements.

B. Report Pothole VI. POTALERT TECHNOLOGIES

This use case is triggered by the road user. The road user
In the development process of the PotAlert, several
is able to make a report of a pothole by taking a picture or
development environments and programming languages
attaching a picture of the pothole from their photo gallery.
were used to build the system. PWA, Firebase, and Google
The road user needs to provide the location, severity of the
Map API are some of the few important core elements of the
pothole, and description to complete the report submission.
PotAlert development.
After the submission, the road user will then receive a report
status.
A. Progressive Web App (PWA)
A PWA is the set of mobile web application development
techniques that entails building apps that feel and look like
native apps. Using a web stack (JS, HTML, and CSS), a PWA
combines various functionalities and a smooth user
experience that is associated with native apps [15]-[17]. In
other words, PWA is a web app with native-app behaviors.
After the installation, a user clicks on its icon on a device
home screen and gets straight to the website as shown in
Fig. 5 and Fig. 6.
Fig. 7 is a representation of the architecture diagram for
PotAlert. The diagram presents a comprehensive view of
how the system functions and how each tool and
framework were utilized for the development of the system.
PotAlert is accessible by two types of stakeholders, which
are the authority and the road user. Users may use any
browser on any device including PCs, tablets, and
smartphones to access the system
Fig. 4 PotAlert use case diagram

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TABLE I
PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES, FRAMEWORKS, AND LIBRARIES
USED TO DEVELOP POTALERT

Languages/
Framework/ Description
Libraries
Used in web development to organize the content
of web pages and provide the necessary building
HTML, CSS,
blocks for the web app. Apart from that, CSS aids in
JavaScript
the look and the feel of the page, and Javascript
assists in its programming capabilities.
Javascript framework for interactive web page
Svelte
building for the system.
Server-side Javascript run-time environment used
Node.js for web app development and serves as the backend
of the system.
A JavaScript library is used to manipulate documents
using data. D3.js uses HTML, SVG, and CSS to
D3.js
visualize data in the form of bar charts and donut
charts effectively for this system.
Fig. 5 PotAlert Fig. 6 PotAlert icon on
installation home screen TABLE II
TOOLS USED IN DEVELOPMENT
B. PotAlert System Architecture Tools Description
Used for prototyping and user interface (UI)
Figma
The system adopted Svelte, which is a front-end design.
Javascript framework that provides client start-up and run- The tool is used to sketch out early visualization and
time performance. Node JS handles the runtime Lucidchart collaborative ideas with the use of a flowchart. It
also aids in the early stages of system design.
environment and acts as the mediator between the
Used to run the system web server running on the
framework and the Firebase database. local machine to the internet to test the real-time
Ngrok web UI where HTTP traffic running can be
C. Programming Languages, Frameworks, Libraries, and observed.
Tools Used Visual Studio Integrated development environment for coding
Code and implementation.
A cloud-hosted database. The reporting data made
The PotAlert system was developed using the languages
by the road users are stored as JSON on Firebase.
and tools as listed in Tables I and II. For each language and Firebase The data is also synchronized in real-time if it is
tool, a brief description is included in the respective tables. added, edited, or deleted.
Google Maps Embedded in the road user system to detect the
API location of the pothole.

D. User Interfaces for Road Users

The main user interfaces for the road user are the login
page, the user profile, and then create report page as shown
in Figures 8-11.

Fig. 7 PotAlert Architecture diagram

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Meanwhile, Fig. 13 shows the available type of

visualizations including visualizations of the number of
reported potholes, pothole severity, and pothole
maintenance progress. These visualizations can be derived
from the existing pothole data in the database.

Fig. 8 PotAlert Login page Fig. 9 PotAlert Profile page

E. User Interfaces for Authority

The user interfaces for the authority are the pothole

report list and the visualization page as shown in Figures 12
and 13. As shown in Fig. 12, the authority is able to view,
update and delete the pothole status.

Fig. 13 Visualizations of Number of reports, Pothole severity

and Pothole Maintenance Progress

VII. LIMITATIONS AND CONSTRAINTS

Fig. 10 PotAlert Report page Fig. 11 Create report Throughout the project’s development, certain
restrictions have been found. To begin with, there is
presently no way for a road user to alter their report after it
has been created in the system. The authority also lacks the
ability to manually enter a new report into the system. Due
to time restrictions, the project focuses on the road users’
reporting function and the authority’s pothole
management. As a result, several other functions, such as
road crew and administrator, are not yet completely built
and may need to be added to the PotAlert system in the
future.
Furthermore, because the app is built with Firebase
technology, the current administration role can only
regulate user access and accounts through the Firebase
dashboard, as a complete administrator function would
require a lot of time to construct. This specific functionality
will be expanded together with the other features in the
system’s future development.
In addition, it is worth noting that because actual data
Fig. 12 PotAlert for Authority pothole list status from real users is difficult to obtain due to the present

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pandemic and movement control order in the nation due to reports to support decision-making. The main drive in
Covid 19, the system only utilizes dummy data for system developing this system is to provide convenience and ease
implementation in the authority part of data visualization of access for both road users and authority in the process of
and reporting. reporting and managing the potholes.
The future work for the system can be further upgraded
VIII. FUTURE WORK and broadened with ample features that can accommodate
more user experience among road users and authorities.
There are a few enhancements that could potentially be
Moreover, after the potholes are repaired, the roads
added to the system to improve its performance and
become safer for commuters and their vehicles. Although it
usefulness. As specified in the limitations, facilities for
would not be a prohibitively expensive or time-consuming
amending road user reports and removing authority reports
strategy, it would encourage individuals to contribute to
should be included in future PotAlert development. This
public safety.
feature is especially desirable as it increases the level of error
tolerance in the system. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Apart from that, a feature that automatically detects and
We would like to express our sincere gratitude and
collects redundant pothole reports that point to the same
profound appreciation to Kulliyyah of Information and
location in one group may also be added in the future work
Communication Technology, International Islamic University
of the system. This would allow the authority to rectify if a
Malaysia for all the support.
pothole has received multiple identical reports, which at the
same time, could indirectly inform them of the criticality of REFERENCES
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