Pothole Detection, Reporting and Management Using Internet of Things: Prospects and Challenges

Road networks are the means of transporting goods and services from place to place in society as well as channels of communication. Consequently, access to good road networks enhances the quality of life and work of people. But the poor nature of design and development of road networks coupled with natural disasters such as heavy rainfall has brought about many unwanted potholes and scratches on the roads which are very dangerous to commuters and other road users as well as vehicles that utilise the roads. In addition, the lack of a proper road maintenance system has resulted in an ever increasing number of potholes which endanger efficient transportation and road safety. Meanwhile road maintenance works haslargely depended on manual detection and reporting. The advent of computers, information technologies, network and communication technologies and sensors have brought abouta new phenomenon known as “internet of things” also put “internet of everything” (IoT// IoE). The global network of things is the connection of the physical objects to virtual objectsin the world. This enables physical world objects to be assigned unique internet protocol addresses with the purpose of sharing and exchanging data and information. The paperconducts a study into the use of internet of things to detect and report potholes on roads. The paper assembles an open hardware equipment and sensor to experiment the detection andreporting of potholes using IoT/IoE enabled devices. The paper presented the architectural design and system to detect, report and manage potholes and other road obstacles using IoT.The paper also presented some prospects and challenges in the implementation of internet of things (IoT).