CommuniSense: Crowdsourcing Road Hazards in Nairobi

Nairobi is one of the fastest growing metropolitan cities and a major business and technology powerhouse in Africa. However, Nairobi currently lacks monitoring technologies to obtain reliable data on traffic and road infrastructure conditions. In this paper, we investigate the use of mobile crowdsourcing as means to gather and document Nairobi's road quality information. We first present the key findings of a city-wide road quality survey about the perception of existing road quality conditions in Nairobi. Based on the survey's findings, we then developed a mobile crowdsourcing application, called CommuniSense, to collect road quality data. The application serves as a tool for users to locate, describe, and photograph road hazards. We tested our application through a two-week field study amongst 30 participants to document various forms of road hazards from different areas in Nairobi. To verify the authenticity of user-contributed reports from our field study, we proposed to use online crowdsourcing using Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to verify whether submitted reports indeed depict road hazards. We found 92% of user-submitted reports to match the MTurkers judgements. While our prototype was designed and tested on a specific city, our methodology is applicable to other developing cities.Comment: In Proceedings of 17th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2015

Western and Southern Quincy Basin Regional Field Trip

This booklet provides directions for a driving tour consisting of sites providing evidence of the Ice Age Floods in and around Moses Lake, Washington. The route extends from the Moses Coulee in the north end to the Corfu Landslide Complex in to the south. This documented was created for the a field trip sponsored by the Wenatchee Valley Erratics chapter of the Ice Age Floods Institute

Lubang Indah: The pothole installation art

The effects of the epidemic of COVID-19 can be seen in the natural deterioration of the roads. Self-isolation and curfews during the pandemic further exacerbate the mental health problem. Through this project, the researchers hoped to convey the negative impression of the pothole-strewn streets through an art installation. Using an artistic medium is one way to counteract the negative perception people have of potholes. In this project, freshly picked flowers, with only stems and no branches, were placed in the pothole. In this way, actual activity can be recorded based on the design of potholes. Keywords: Pothole, installation art. eISSN: 2398-4287© 2022. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians/Africans/Arabians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DO

Numerically simulating the interconnected nature of the road-soil-pipe infrastructure

Successful operation of infrastructure, such as the road, rail, and utility networks, are fundamental to modern living, and failure of these can have significant consequences. Yet they are likely, when in proximity, to interact, and failure of one can cause cascade failure of others. Equally, all are supported by the ground, which can also experience changes in properties as the infrastructure deteriorates. Research into the interconnected nature of these infrastructure is not new, but much focuses on the structural behaviour of the human-made components (road structures, pipes, etc). This paper presents a numerical model developed to systematically evaluate the impacts of simulated pipe leakage on the surrounding ground and pavement layer above. The model outputs indicate that the road surface experiences increased strains due to weakening ground conditions around the leaking pipe and these are exacerbated by asymmetrical traffic loading. Findings indicate that leakage can cause differential settlements (observed both at the surface and pipe levels), which could cause localised deterioration of the pavement material (due to tensile cracking, etc.) precipitating surface anomalies like cracks or potholes. This suggests that understanding the root-cause of road surface deterioration is critical to efficient long-term management of road networks so that the symptoms are not remediated whilst the root-cause remains. This research provides a crucial step towards enhancing predictive maintenance and calls for further investigation into the long-term geotechnical impacts of leakage, to develop robust repair and maintenance frameworks that address underlying causes of road surface anomalies

Numerically simulating the interconnected nature of the road-soil-pipe infrastructure

Successful operation of infrastructure, such as the road, rail, and utility networks, are fundamental to modern living, and failure of these can have significant consequences. Yet they are likely, when in proximity, to interact, and failure of one can cause cascade failure of others. Equally, all are supported by the ground, which can also experience changes in properties as the infrastructure deteriorates. Research into the interconnected nature of these infrastructure is not new, but much focuses on the structural behaviour of the human-made components (road structures, pipes, etc). This paper presents a numerical model developed to systematically evaluate the impacts of simulated pipe leakage on the surrounding ground and pavement layer above. The model outputs indicate that the road surface experiences increased strains due to weakening ground conditions around the leaking pipe and these are exacerbated by asymmetrical traffic loading. Findings indicate that leakage can cause differential settlements (observed both at the surface and pipe levels), which could cause localised deterioration of the pavement material (due to tensile cracking, etc.) precipitating surface anomalies like cracks or potholes. This suggests that understanding the root-cause of road surface deterioration is critical to efficient long-term management of road networks so that the symptoms are not remediated whilst the root-cause remains. This research provides a crucial step towards enhancing predictive maintenance and calls for further investigation into the long-term geotechnical impacts of leakage, to develop robust repair and maintenance frameworks that address underlying causes of road surface anomalies

Time Series Analysis of Pavement Roughness Condition Data for use in Asset Management

Roughness is a direct measure of the unevenness of a longitudinal section of road pavement. Increased roughness corresponds to decreased ride comfort and increased road user costs. Roughness is relatively inexpensive to measure. Measuring roughness progression over time enables pavement deterioration, which is the result of a complex and chaotic system of environmental and road management influences, to be monitored. This in turn enables the long term functional behaviour of a pavement network to be understood and managed. A range of approaches has been used to model roughness progression for assistance in pavement asset management. The type of modelling able to be undertaken by road agencies depends upon the frequency and extent of data collection, which are consequences of funding available. The aims of this study are to increase the understanding of unbound granular pavement performance by investigating roughness progression, and to model roughness progression to improve roughness prediction methods. The pavement management system in place within the project partner road agency and the data available to this study lend themselves to a methodology allowing roughness progression to be investigated using financial maintenance and physical condition information available for each 1km pavement segment in a 16,000km road network

Potholes and obstacles on the learning path. An experimental analysis of a GI-curriculum using GI-activities as teaching subjects

In 2007, a small survey was held among teaching staff of the Master of Geo-information curriculum at Wageningen University. The objective was to find out if an overview of entry and exit mastery levels per teaching subject would provide a basis for judging the quality of the curriculum. Findings were, that this approach gave insight into some quality aspects. A conclusion was that specifically the connectivity between curriculum components can be strongly influenced by subjective concepts held by members of staff about on the contents of components. This may result in cliffs, gaps and overlaps with regard to knowledge and contents between consecutive curriculum components. Where that happens, the chain of components that constitute a Learning Path can be improved