Development of Pothole Management System (PMS)

The project is based on the development of a Pothole Management System as proposed by NSW Government. The proposed mobile application will help reporting potholes that cause a lot of accidents on the roads. Using the app, the contractors will also be able to act quickly to rectify the potholes with much reduced cost and time.

Running Head: PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Project Management: User Evaluation Report
Name of the Student
Name of the University

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Letter of Transmittal
To
Mr. A. White,
Local Development Manager,
NSW Government
Dated: 8/4/2019
Respected Sir,
I submit herewith a detailed analysis on the requirement for a Pothole Management System that
will be beneficial for both the local public as well as the management teams like RMS and Local
Council. The proposed mobile application will help reporting potholes that cause a lot of
accidents on the roads. Using the app, the contractors will also be able to act quickly to rectify
the potholes with much reduced cost and time. I have hereby attached the report that includes
system vision document and proposed time schedule required to implement the proposed system.
Thanks & Regards,
PLEASE FILL

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Title of the Project: Development of Pothole Management System (PMS)
Producers: PLEASE FILL
Recipient: NSW Government
Source: PLEASE FILL
Date: PLEASE FILL

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Executive Summary
The project is based on the development of a Pothole Management System as proposed by NSW
Government. The proposed mobile application will help reporting potholes that cause a lot of
accidents on the roads. Using the app, the contractors will also be able to act quickly to rectify
the potholes with much reduced cost and time. In this report, a detailed analysis has been
conducted regarding the system requirements and features and an estimated time required to
conduct the entire project.

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Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................5
2.0 Project Analysis: Pothole Management System for NSW........................................................6
2.1 Stakeholder Analysis.............................................................................................................6
2.2 Interview Analysis.................................................................................................................8
2.2.1 NSW Government..........................................................................................................8
2.2.2 Roads and Maritime Services (RMS)...........................................................................10
2.2.3 Local Councils..............................................................................................................10
2.2.4 Contractors....................................................................................................................11
2.2.5 General Public..............................................................................................................11
2.3 Work Breakdown Structure.................................................................................................12
2.4 System Vision Document....................................................................................................13
2.4.1 Introduction...................................................................................................................13
2.4.2 User Description...........................................................................................................13
2.4.3 Product Features and Benefits......................................................................................14
2.5 Gantt Chart...........................................................................................................................14
3.0 Conclusion...............................................................................................................................15
Bibliography..................................................................................................................................16

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1.0 Introduction
Road potholes are major problems in NSW roads through which thousands of vehicles
pass every instant. Due to lack of proper maintenance as well as adverse weather conditions,
potholes are created on the roads that may lead to severe accidents and injuries to the car
passengers. There have also been reports of fatal injuries caused due to the accidents on road
potholes. The situation becomes worse during the rainy season when the roads become water-
logged and the drivers cannot see the potholes and accidents are caused. While NSW
government is aware of the situation and wants to take appropriate steps to prevent the accidents,
it is almost impossible for them to inspect all 18,000 km roadway in NSW for finding potholes.
Hence, the government wants to use the drivers’ reports as the means for identification of
potholes. Once the drivers or any other pedestrians report the presence of potholes at a particular
location, RMS (Roads and Maritime Services) sends workers and necessary equipments and
resources in order to repair the damaged part of the roads. However, this process is very much
time consuming and hence, many accidents can occur before the workers reach the location.
Furthermore, the reports are not always reliable and results in waste of resources for the
government. There are also other issues regarding the ownership of the road – there is often
conflict regarding who will manage the issue RMS or Local Council. The common people do not
have clear idea regarding who to report and thus, the potholes often remain unattended. Hence,
NSW government has decided to implement a new operational framework named “Pothole
Management System” that will include the development of a mobile app through which, the
drivers can report the potholes encountered at specific locations of the road.

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In this report, a detailed analysis has been conducted based on the project life cycle and
relevant attributes of project that are related to the proposed pothole management system by
NSW Government.
2.0 Project Analysis: Pothole Management System for NSW
2.1 Stakeholder Analysis
In this project, there are a number of stakeholders involved who are listed as follows.
Stakeholder Designation Stakeholder Type
NSW Government Internal / Executive
Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) Internal / Operational
Local Councils Internal / Operational
Contractors External / Operational
General Public External / Operational
The proposed roles of the stakeholders in the project are specified in the following table.
Stakeholder Roles and Responsibilities Stakeholder
Power /
Influence
NSW Government The main role of NSW government is to ensure the
project goes through and to provide funds for the project.
The NSW government will develop an appropriate
management framework that other stakeholders will need
to follow. Furthermore, RMS and Local Councils will
have to report to the NSW Government regarding the
Very High

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progress as well as the benefits of the project.
Roads and Maritime
Services (RMS)
The main duty to be assigned to RMS is to attend the
reported potholes at various locations. Previously, it was
not clear regarding who will be responsible RMS or Local
Council and naturally, there were conflicts regarding the
same. Now, RMS will have the full responsibility of
managing the potholes and report to the Local Council
after each management action taken.
Medium
Local Councils The duty of Local Councils is to supervise whether RMS
have taken immediate action to repair the roads and
remove the potholes. RMS will report to them and in turn,
they will report to the NSW Government. In case RMS
does not attend a reported pothole immediately, local
council can report to the NSW Government for further
action.
High
Contractors Contractors are responsible for deploying the workers to
repair the pothole affected roads. They get contract and
payment from RMS and will attend a pothole once there is
a report. Contractors are generally hired on single contract
basis and they are changed after one project if RMS finds
a better contractor at cheaper price. Contractors can be
penalized if they fail to repair a portion of a road within a
given deadline.
Low
General Public General public need to the report potholes to RMS
whenever they detect on the road. A mobile app will be
developed that can be downloaded by the public in their
Medium

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smartphones and they can report pothole location and
details through this app and the report will automatically
reach RMS. Thus, there will be no more confusion
regarding who to report when a pothole is found on a
road. In order to avoid fake reports, the public will be
required to click photos of the pothole and send them
along with the report to RMS.
2.2 Interview Analysis
Based on the interview of NSW government and other stakeholders regarding the Pothole
Management System, the following points have been gathered for each stakeholder group.
2.2.1 NSW Government
2.2.1.1 Goals for Pothole Management System
As per the interview transcript, NSW government wants to reduce costs and increase
efficiency for pothole management. As per NSW, both Local Council and RMS have to handle
the pothole issues depending on the area of the road and the ownership of the particular area.
Due to this, confusion arises that leads to delay or lack of management action for the pothole. As
a result, the potholes remain unattended, continuing to cause frequent accidents on the road. The
loss of time and funds due to responsibility of too many parties at once leads to increased
response time, cost and decrease in efficiency. The goal of the pothole management system is to
clear the confusion and allow the people to direct report to the responsible authority through
smartphone app efficiently and effectively.

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2.2.1.2 Responsibility of the System
Previously, there was confusion regarding who is responsible for managing the pothole
management system and go ahead to repair the roads. It was not clear regarding who will be
responsible RMS or Local Council due to unclear duty requirements and naturally, there were
conflicts regarding the same. NSW government has decided to solve this issue and divide the
duties to RMS and Local Council so that there is no more confusion regarding the duties and
responsibilities. From the project, RMS will have complete responsibility of attending the
potholes that are reported by the public. After attending each pothole, RMS will report to the
Local Council who will in turn report to the NSW government regarding progress of the work.
As per the plan, a mobile app will be developed that will be directly connected to RMS’s system.
Each time a public reports a pothole through the app, the report will be generated in RMS’s
system and RMS can then deploy contractor to take care of the pothole.
2.2.1.3 System Requirements
As per NSW, the system will be needed to generated monthly reports regarding number
of potholes fixed, cost of fixing of each pothole, time required to fix each pothole and others.
The statistical data will help NSW to devise better pothole management framework and deal with
the potholes at lesser costs and higher efficiency.
2.2.1.4 Future Versions of the System
NSW government has plans to develop a more technically upgraded system that will be
able to perform geographical mapping of the pothole hotspots. However, the government
understands that this is still a long shot and have reserved the idea for later implementation when
there is scope for furthermore development of the currently proposed system.

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2.2.2 Roads and Maritime Services (RMS)
2.2.2.1 Goals
As per the interview, RMS stated that they are dedicated to complete repair and
maintenance of major roads in the state. However, they have complained that in many cases,
reports of potholes do not reach them on time or at all and hence, they are not able to attend the
potholes in time or at all. RMS demands a proper pothole management system that will notify
them whenever there is a report made by a general public.
2.2.2.2 Process
RMS described that in the current system, reporting is done by general public through
occasional phone call with very basic detail regarding the location and nature of the pothole. This
is an ineffective process and RMS often is not able to identify the location or there are fake calls
regarding pothole report.
2.2.2.3 Requirements for the New System
RMS demands a system in which the detailed reports (location and picture of the pothole)
will be gathered in the central system used by them. Based on the reports, the contractors can
access the data and attend the potholes accordingly. The contractors can also be able to update
report including costs encountered and time required to rectify the pothole as per their work
order.
2.2.3 Local Councils
2.2.3.1 Goals
Local Council has clearly stated that they have the same goal as RMS regarding the new
system. However, they said that they will only bear responsibility for small local areas within

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their limits and will not interfere with other roads that are not within any city council. However,
RMS can report to them regarding a maintenance work and they can report to the NSW
government accordingly.
2.2.4 Contractors
2.2.4.1 Process
The contractors said that the current process is extremely long and exhaustive. After
receiving a call, they not only need to travel to the pothole location, they have to click pictures
and take data and then travel to RMS or Local Council office for reporting. They have to repeat
the process after the maintenance work is complete. As they emphasized, these processes are
long drawn and mostly unnecessary and also incur additional unnecessary costs.
2.2.4.2 Want from the System
The demands from the contractors are clear – they want a system that will notify them
regarding a reported pothole and they will be able to submit photos and documentations to RMS
or Local Council without having to travel to the respective offices. The mobile application will
significantly benefit their cause and will help to cut down a lot of costs for managing the
potholes.
2.2.5 General Public
General public are of the opinion that they currently do not have proper idea regarding
who to report when they find a pothole on the road. Some of them have even said they did not
know they can report potholes to anyone. According to their common demands, a mobile app
will be very helpful through which they can send report to relevant authority with just the tap of
a finger. They also want to be notified once their reported potholes are rectified. Finally, they

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requested an optional feature of attaching a picture of the pothole along with the report so that
the authority and the contractor have a clear idea regarding how much resources will be required
to fix the reported potholes.
2.3 Work Breakdown Structure
The work breakdown structure of the project is shown as follows.
WBS Activity / Task Duration (Weeks)
1 Requirement Gathering
1.1 Analysis of the Current State of Affairs 1
1.2 Analysis of the Current Process 2
1.3 Identify Issues with the Process 1
1.4 Identify Need to Restructure the Process 1
2 Interview
2.1 Interview NSW Government 1
2.2 Interview RMS 1
2.3 Interview Local Councils 1
2.4 Interview Contractors 1
2.5 Interview General Public 1
3 Project Plan Development
3.1 Define Scope 0.5
3.2 Prepare Project Charter 0.5
3.3 Hire Development Team 1
3.4 Specify System Requirements 1
4 Development and Testing
4.1 Develop Application 5
4.2 Integrate Features 3
4.3 Testing of the Features 3
4.4 Identify and Resolve System Bugs 2
4.5 System Launch 1
5 Appraisal and Closing
5.1 Review of the Project 2
5.2 Appraisal 1
5.3 Payments 1
5.4 Documentation 1
5.5 Sign Off and Closing 1

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2.4 System Vision Document
2.4.1 Introduction
2.4.1.1 Purpose of the Document
The purpose of this document is to collect, analyze and define user needs and features for
the Pothole Management System (PMS).
2.4.1.2 Overview of the Product
The proposed product is a mobile application that can be used to report a pothole
encountered on the road. Through this app, a general public can report to RMS or Local Council
regarding a pothole on a particular location. This information can be viewed by a contractor who
will take measures accordingly. Work reports can be updated on this PMS by the contractors and
other stakeholders.
2.4.2 User Description
2.4.2.1 User Profiles
The main users of the system are RMS, Local Council, Contractors and General Public.
2.4.2.2 User Environment
The initial plan is to develop a mobile application for the general public but Local
Council and RMS will have the same version of the application developed for their computers as
they need to monitor and control the entire system.

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2.4.2.3 User Needs
The general people need to report the potholes so that they can be rectified and the
accidents can be avoided. RMS and Local Council also need to be notified regarding the potholes
so that they can take actions accordingly.
2.4.3 Product Features and Benefits
The proposed product is a mobile application for the general public and a computer
server based application for RMS and Local Council. Using this application, any general public
can report a pothole at a particular location (aided by GPS tracker of the phone) along with a
picture of the pothole (optional) to the relevant authority. Using the server based application, the
contractors can take work orders and take actions to rectify the potholes accordingly. RMS and
Local Council can monitor and report to NSW Government regarding the issues.
The main benefit of the system is that a lot of time and cost will be saved as detailed
inspection will not be required. Contractors can take work orders directly and can take actions
against the potholes immediately without wastage of time and resources.
2.5 Gantt Chart
The Gantt chart of the project is shown in the following diagram.

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Figure 1: Gantt Chart of the Project
(Source: Created by Author)
3.0 Conclusion
Finally, from the analysis, it can be concluded that the proposed system has the potential
to solve the problems raised by the main stakeholders related to the project. Based on the
feedbacks received from the stakeholders from the interviews, a mobile application can be
developed with the features mentioned. The features demanded by the stakeholders are realistic
and a time period of 12-13 weeks is sufficient for developing a suitable mobile application.

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