Design and Development of a Crowdsourced Fault Reporting System for Public Infrastructure in Zambia

Public infrastructure plays an important role in supporting transportation, economic activities, public safety, sanitation, and the general well-being of communities. However, Zambia continues to experience infrastructure problems such as damaged roads, blocked drainage systems, burst sewer pipes, damaged or missing manhole covers, and malfunctioning traffic lights. Existing methods of reporting these faults, including physical visits to local authority offices, telephone calls, letters, and social media platforms, are often fragmented and time-consuming. They also provide limited mechanisms for capturing accurate geographical information and multimedia evidence, making it difficult for authorities to verify, locate, prioritize, and track reported infrastructure faults.

This study focuses on the design and development of a Crowdsourced Fault Reporting System for Public Infrastructure in Zambia. The proposed system will provide citizens with a mobile or web-based platform for reporting infrastructure faults by submitting descriptions, photographs or short videos, and automatically capturing GPS coordinates. The system will incorporate an interactive map for visualizing reported faults and an administrative dashboard through which responsible authorities can review reports, update their status, and monitor reported infrastructure problems.

The study will examine the existing methods used for reporting public infrastructure faults and identify the challenges associated with these methods. Scrum will be used as the system development methodology because it supports iterative development, continuous testing, and incorporation of feedback. The proposed system will incorporate technologies including mobile or web application development tools, Node.js, MySQL, GPS services, and Google Maps API or OpenStreetMap for location visualization.

The expected outcome of the study is a functional prototype that provides a simple and efficient means of reporting public infrastructure faults. The system is expected to improve communication between citizens and local authorities, enhance the accuracy of reported fault locations through GPS, provide supporting evidence through multimedia, and improve transparency through report status tracking. The study will demonstrate the potential of crowdsourcing, GPS, multimedia, and Geographic Information Systems in improving public infrastructure fault reporting and management in Zambia.