RoadWatch

Inspiration

Road maintenance is often slow, fragmented, and difficult to track. Citizens usually do not know where to report road damage, while authorities receive incomplete information and struggle to prioritize repairs. We built RoadWatch to create an AI-powered platform that connects citizens and government agencies through intelligent road damage detection, transparent reporting, and real-time monitoring

What it does

RoadWatch enables citizens to capture road images and report defects directly from a mobile application. A YOLO-based AI model analyzes uploaded images to detect road defects such as potholes and cracks. Reports are stored in a centralized database and displayed on an administrative dashboard where authorities can review complaints, assign actions, monitor repair progress, analyze trends, and improve maintenance planning.

How we built it

React + Vercel for the web dashboard Spring Boot REST API for backend services PostgreSQL for structured data management Python FastAPI with YOLO for AI-based road defect detection AWS EC2 for backend deployment Android application for citizen reporting Interactive dashboards for complaint tracking and analytics

Challenges we ran into

The biggest challenges included integrating AI predictions with the backend, handling image uploads efficiently, managing large files, deploying multiple services, configuring cloud infrastructure, securing API communication, and ensuring smooth communication between the mobile app, backend, AI service, and dashboard.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Built a complete full-stack platform instead of only an AI model. Successfully integrated real-time AI-based road defect detection. Developed both citizen and administrator workflows. Created an analytics dashboard for monitoring complaints and road conditions. Deployed the solution on cloud infrastructure with a production-ready architecture.

What we learned

This project strengthened our understanding of full-stack system architecture, AI deployment, REST API design, cloud deployment, database integration, scalable application development, and collaboration across multiple technologies.

What's next for RoadWatch

Our next goal is to support larger-scale deployments by enhancing cloud infrastructure, improving AI accuracy, enabling predictive road maintenance, integrating GIS and live traffic data, adding multilingual support, and expanding RoadWatch into a smart infrastructure platform for cities and highway authorities.

Built With

• amazon-aurora-postgresql
• aws-ec2
• cloudinary
• docker
• fastapi
• git
• hugging-face-spaces
• java
• jwt-authentication
• opencv
• python
• react
• rest-api
• spring-boot
• typescript
• vercel
• vite
• yolov8