Gauteng govt launches pothole reporting platform

The Gauteng department of roads and transport has launched a mobile application to get road-users to report potholes and other road defects to it speedily.

The “PotholeFixGP” App is part of the province’s smart mobility weekends programme and allows road users to report poor road conditions and other road maintenance issues to the department.

Gauteng MEC for public transport and road infrastructure Jacob Mamabolo said PotholeFixGP was an easy-to-use app downloadable from Google Play Store.

He said it was still coming to the Huawei and Apple App store platforms.

Mamabolo said the potholes and road defects reported via the app were immediately allocated to a maintenance team for repairs.

“The app will provide a status update of the [repairs to the road-user] ranging from reported, assigned, to completed,” said Mamabolo.

He said the app had the capacity to decipher if the reported pothole or defect was on a municipal, provincial or national road then refer it “to the responsible agency for attention”.

Same same. No action on Rooihuiskraal Road, The Reeds. The effect is #pothole formation, the cause is lack of water #drainage under the road, allowing the #Wetlands to pass. Please @CityTshwane we need real solutions here. Seems I will be planting trees with @Abramjee soon! pic.twitter.com/QqEaBf5wPz

— Henriette Frohlich (@henriettefroh) May 27, 2022

Mamabolo said the app was part of an effort by the department to build a relationship with motorists and other road users by turning them into the “eyes and ears of the department” to keep the road infrastructure in a good condition.

He said the co-operation between the road-user and the department would create a safe and pleasant driving experience for all.

Mamabolo said the app was part of the department’s commitment to leveraging new technologies in an effort to gather information about road defects that needed urgent attention.

“The people of Gauteng are encouraged to download the app and report road maintenance issues that need attention,” said Mamabolo.

The app comes against the backdrop of the Tshwane metro’s accelerated bid to fight potholes with the deployment of the so-called jet patcher machine.

https://twitter.com/VictorNoko/status/1528813973591805954?s=20&t=lF6T-BOJ394qU4jkJUiZIA

The metro said the road repair machine provided a cost-effective way of maintaining asphalt road surfaces including potholes and cracks in car parks and footpaths around the city.

[WATCH] We are continuing with our efforts to fix potholes throughout the City. We have deployed the Jet patcher machine to Rayton this morning to conduct extensive road repairs. @CityTshwane pic.twitter.com/fg1B0z99wp

— Mayor Cilliers Brink (@tshwane_mayor) May 27, 2022

Metro mayor Randall Williams said the machine would turn the tide in the fight to reduce the pothole repair backlog in the city.

“The machine has received positive feedback from our councillors across different political lines and our teams on the ground who have been working to speedily repair these road defects within affected communities,” said Williams.

Williams said because of the machine, the metro had fixed more than 4 000 square metres of potholes in Rosslyn, Soshanguve South ext. 2, New Eersterus, Mangobo, Zwartkop, Eldoraigne, Wierdapark on Garsfontein and Brakfontein roads in one week.

He said the metro had set aside “R154-million in its 2022/23 budget for road maintenance”.

“This represents a budget increase of about R17-million from the previous financial year,” said Williams.

Williams said the Jet patcher machine was proving to be a great asset in accelerating pothole repairs and improving general road maintenance.

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