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Johannesburg - Questions are being asked about how effective a Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) mobile application is in helping to get potholes fixed.
Craig Heckrath of Intervate, the technology company that developed the JRA Find&Fix pothole app, has told Fin24 that Joburg residents are filing on average 1 000 pothole reports per week using the technology service.
Heckrath, though, said efforts are in place to improve data capturing on how quickly potholes are then fixed by JRA contractors and field agents.
To date, the app has only allowed Joburg residents the opportunity to report and identify potholes that need fixing. It’s then the JRA’s responsibility to resolve the reported issues.
But Intervate is bolting on extra features to the app, such as the ability to rate the quality of work done on a fixed pothole and an app for contractors and JRA field agents to file reports about potholes that they’ve filled.
The JRA told Fin24 that the app is helping it not only to identify pothole problems, but also other issues relating to “traffic lights ... signage, stormwater drains, manhole covers, general, road grading, weed/grass cutting, street names (pole and kerb), road markings, pavements and guardrails”.
However, Fin24 users have said the JRA is failing to respond to many reports filed on the Find&Fix app.
“The app is useless. A huge manhole cover is missing in my suburb. After logging it twice, there was no action four months later and the only way I got a reply from JRA was two weeks ago after I posted a picture of it on Twitter and lambasted them. They then said they would look into it. Today the hole remains gaping open,” Fin24 user Mark Pilgrim wrote in an email.
Another Fin24 user David Haslam said his “experience with the JRA app has been poor”.
“I logged two calls in mid-February, one for a missing stormwater cover and a second for a blocked stormwater drain on the Marlboro M1 North off-ramp,” wrote Haslam in an email.
“To date neither has been responded to, with a blanket email ... saying only emergency issues were being dealt with due to strike action,” said Haslam.
“What's the point of logging issues if two months later they are still not resolved?”
Fin24 reached out to the JRA for a response to users’ complaints about the alleged non-responses from the roads agency on these issues.
In its reply, JRA spokesperson Bertha Scheepers explained to Fin24 that JRA employees part of the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) embarked on a strike on February 27 2015 which affected operations.
Scheepers told Fin24 that the JRA attempted to deal with the disruption “by deploying non-striking staff as well as contractors”.
“However, acts of intimidation against non-striking members and of tampering with traffic signals, which the union categorically denied, were experienced. This naturally impacted on the entity’s ability to provide a service to the community within the stipulated turnaround times,” Scheepers told Fin24.
“An interim interdict was secured at the Labour Court last Wednesday (April 8) declaring the strike unprotected, and employees have returned to work. Our efforts will now be concentrated on resolving service backlogs across the City,” Scheepers told Fin24.
Regarding a response to Fin24 user Mark Pilgrim’s complaint about a missing manhole cover in his suburb, Scheepers issued the following response.
She explained that the JRA is implementing an initiative to replace all concrete and iron manhole covers with alternative materials such as plastic and polymer. Scheepers also added that manhole covers are stolen across the City of Joburg area by thieves who sell them to scrap metal dealers.
“To this end, our Procurement has extended the closing deadline to March 10 for the supply and delivery of non-metal products (alternative material covers) in order to give suppliers enough time to make up samples – so hopefully by beginning May we should have stock of these alternative manhole covers,” Scheepers said.
“3 063 missing manhole covers have been reported to the JRA over the past 12 months. The JRA is facing an enormous battle to save the city’s road assets from rampant theft and vandalism,” Scheepers told Fin24.
Scheepers said that approximately 1 050 manhole covers need to be replaced at a cost of R4.2m and that during the 2013/2014 financial year the JRA spent R2.9m on manhole covers.
Finally, Scheepers in her JRA response said the Find&Fix mobile application will still help the JRA in solving these problems.
“Fortunately enhancements to the Find&Fix app such as the public broadcast feature has enabled us to message users about the impact of the strike on service delivery turnaround times as well as the challenges experienced replacing manhole covers with alternative materials. So we are now able to keep users informed about the issues logged,” she said.
Scheepers has also called on Johannesburg residents to report all acts of vandalism and theft of road infrastructure to the City of Johannesburg’s Call Centre 0860 562 874. She advised residents to also report these criminal activities to the South African Police Service (SAPS) or to the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD).
