Apprise

Crowdsourcing based safety solution and much more!

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Apprise | Mobile & Web

N|Solid

Crowdsourcing based safety system and much more!

Welcome to Apprise. Apprise is combination of a mobile and a web app mainly works on the idea of crowdsourcing.

Apprise mobile is a community app that creates a network of interactive users. Each user has a public and a private interface.

With the public interface, user can create a "Road Report” for a particular place pointing to a safety issue (for example slippery conditions of a road). With this information, combined with the information provided by the rest of the users of Apprise, our system will create a set of safety flags on the map in home screen of Apprise. These flags will caution people about a potential safety issue to be aware of. Also our web app will help the concerned authorities pinpoint these issues. Other users can “up vote” a report and also mark the report as "resolved". Our system will take down a flag if the minimum number of “resolved” votes are received. You can easily target a specific user group (for example the pedestrians). Similarly you can filter the reports in the map.

You can use GPS to pinpoint your current location on map, search for a location and also find routes between two points, right from the home screen.

Apprise web app can help the concerned authorities to easily know these safety issues raised by end users. They can take action to resolve these issues and end users will mark them resolved once they are gone.

With the private interface, users can enlist other users as "RoadPal". When you change a safety status, it appear in your RoadPals’ feed. It helps them know whether you are safe, in case of emergencies. You can enlist your friends and family members as “RoadPals” using email address, unlike social networks, so that unwanted people cannot search for you. You will be notified when someone add you as RoadPal and can add them back or block any unknown follower. You can turn on automatic location reporting so that using the ”Locator” feature your RoadPals can easily find out your last known location in case of emergencies.

Apprise community can rate transportation service providers. By answering a few questions user can express his concern about the safety measures of a service. You can edit your response later as well. Our system will analyze these ratings and crate a safety leaderboard. This leaderboard is also available on the web app for easy access of service authorities. They can also see statistics about user ratings. There will be motivation to go up the leaderboard by providing better and safer service. Otherwise they may lose customers due to poor safety ratings.

You can keep track of a set of safety habits in Apprise. You can choose from a set of presets or create your own habits and work on fulfilling your goals!

Based on your activity and good work on Apprise, our system gives you points.

Our web app has a leaderboard for top community contributions. Top point collectors will appear in LeaderBoard of the web app. Social organizations or local Govt can reward the top contributors for their contribution in making a safer Indore!

This app is not meant to be used while driving.

Inspiration

Living in Dhaka is not so much different than Indore. So when we saw the hackathon news on Devpost we felt that we already know these safety issues prevailing in our roads. It was the urge to build a community app that utilizes two common growing factors of a developing city: 1) Popularity of Smart phone 2) Availability of internet. So we thought of making something by which people can contribute to the safety measures of the community- using the power of cloud!

Current features

Mobile app:

  • Motivational quote on each run
  • Add road reports
  • Upvote a report or mark as Resolved
  • Target specific user group
  • Filter reports
  • Search Location
  • Find Routes
  • Add "RoadPal"
  • Control who is in your RoadPal List
  • Mark me safe feature
  • Get notified when someone adds you as RoadPal
  • Add back or Block users
  • Control your past activities
  • Automated location reporting
  • RoadPal Locator for emergencies
  • Rate transportation services
  • Edit your previous ratings
  • Create and keep track of safety habits
  • Work to fulfill your goals
  • See stats about your contributions
  • Collect points

Web app:

  • Map and road reports- for easy access of concerned authorities
  • Safety Leaderboard for transportation service providers
  • Search for a service
  • Stats for each of the services, rating breakdown
  • Contributor LeaderBoard

How we built it

The mobile app is built with Java and Android SDK. Mobile side data is locally stored in SQLite databases. It makes HttpURLConnection to connect with the Server.

Server is hosted on a free Microsoft Azure platform. Backend is written in PHP and MYSQL database is used. REST api has been used to communicate with the server.

Both mobile and web app uses free MapBox maps and some Google Map APIs. Web app uses JavaScript and AJAX.

Challenges we ran into

Implementing the "Automated Location Reporting" feature was a challenging task. We found out there were some issues about Mapbox SDK for location detection in backgroud services. We had to bring in Google Map to implement this feature.

What's next for Apprise

  • Integrating a small hardware device that we have been working on to facilitate automation of road reports
  • Improvement of web app to facilitate authorization

What we learnt

  • Hosting server on Microsoft Azure
  • Incorporating MapBox SDK in Android
  • Using MapBoxJS for web
  • Incorporating Google map’s reverse geo API
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