Not only Romanian cities have a problem with asphalt pits, but also those in the USA, and the mayor of the city of Boston intends to to produce an application for smartphones that will automatically alert the authorities about the existence of potholes in the asphalt. The application would use the GPS and the accelerometer of the terminals and it would work like this: every time you go over a pothole, the application would "feel" the unevenness using the accelerometer, note the position on the map and send the city hall the location on the map where you hit that pothole pit. It's a very ingenious method of finding out exactly where the pits are and it's interesting that the city hall calls for the help of citizens.
The application relies on two components embedded in iPhones, Android phones, and many other mobile devices: the accelerometer and the Global Positioning System receiver. The accelerometer, which determines the direction and acceleration of a phone's movement, can be harnessed to identify when a phone resting on a dashboard or in a cupholder in a moving car has hit a bump; the GPS receiver can determine by satellite just where that bump is located.
I know that at one point there was an idea for a Romanian application, which would have identified a good part of the pits existing in our cities, but the idea was probably abandoned in the meantime. So, what do you think, would you use such an application when driving to notify the authorities about traffic problems? The application we talked about is called Street Bump, it is in the development process and will be available for the citizens of the city of Boston soon.
