This Bengaluru engineer has built an AI-powered app to report potholes

Over the last several months, utility and pipeline excavation by BWSSB (Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board) across Bengaluru has left roads in shambles. Vehicles parked on broken footpaths, uneven road tops, and a dozen potholes on every street have been the by-product of this ‘utility’ project that seems unending.

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Like most of us, 33-year-old Gaurav Sen has had his share of driving on pothole-ridden roads, and on one such ride, the software engineer decided to do something about it. The founder of AIEngg, an upskilling platform for software engineers, Gaurav put his expertise in system design and AI to use and created an app. Aptly named Pothole Reporter, it is aimed at automatically detecting potholes a vehicle drives over. The Android beta version launched on Google Play’s testing track on September 21 with about 200 testers, and is now available to the public. 

Unlike most platforms that simply detect an issue, Pothole Reporter ensures the complaint reaches the authorities | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

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Explaining its workings, Gaurav says the app photographs the road, either one photo at a time or continuously in ‘Drive’ mode. Unlike most platforms that simply detect an issue, Pothole Reporter ensures the complaint reaches the authorities.

“A vision model checks each frame for potholes. The app then maps the location to the responsible municipal body and matches the pothole against publicly available road contracts to identify a likely contractor,” he says, adding, “While building the complaint flow, I thought finding the tender number would be helpful to the commissioner. It took two more days to dig up data on tenders through publicly accessible records.” 

Gaurav Sen (second from left) with officials at Greater Bengaluru Authority