Gauteng MEC for Public Transport and Road Infrastructure Jacob Mamabolo has launched a new provincial mobile app that allows road users to report potholes and road maintenance issues at the stroke of a key.
Mamabolo unveiled the new FixGPApp at a media briefing in Diepsloot as part of the province’s Smart Mobility Weekends Programme.
“PotholeFixGP” allows road users to report poor road conditions and other road maintenance issues that require attention. The mobile app can be downloaded from the Google Play Store and will soon be available in Huawei and Apple app stores.
Speaking at the launch, Mamabolo said the app was part of his department's commitment to leverage new technologies to assist with the monitoring of potholes and other road defects that needed urgent attention.
“The people of Gauteng are encouraged to download the app and report road maintenance issues that need attention,” Mamabolo said.
Once reported, a pothole/road defect appears on the department’s internal system dashboard where it will be allocated to a maintenance team. Upon allocation, the app will provide a status update of the pothole, ranging from reported and assigned to completed.
It is capable of checking and verifying whether a reported pothole is on a municipal, provincial or national (SA National Roads Agency Limited) road.
Potholes reported are then referred to the responsible road agencies or municipalities for their attention. Potholes on provincial roads for which the department is responsible will be repaired by its road maintenance teams.
The department’s aim for the app is also to build a relationship with motorists and other road users to be the eyes and ears of the department to keep road infrastructure conditions conducive to a safe driving experience.