Johannesburg Road Agency (JRA) sends word that its Find&Fix app – which allows anyone to report broken traffic lights, potholes, missing manhole covers and so on – has logged a whopping 9 749 issues since its launch in May this year. According to the agency, 5 728 Joburg residents have registered to use it on iOS, Android and Windows.
It’s also won some awards, so hurrah!
The app itself is part of a huge internal effort to streamline the agency and reduce the amount of work that goes into administering repair crews and despatching workers to fix problems. Just as important, it’s a very good way of communicating issues around what’s not working and where with road users.
While proving its efficacy is clearly going to require time and comparative studies, anecdotally I can say that the pothole outside my house – which stayed open for weeks – was fixed within 24 hours of me actually remembering the app exists. That’s probably a coincidence, of course.