Enhancing infrastructure maintenance through technology-driven collaboration

Abstract

Collaborative technologies have transformed information and data sharing within and across organizations. The transformative ease of cross-organization collaboration has amplified the opportunity for inter-governmental collaboration. The South African transport/infrastructure sector can benefit from effective and responsive systems underpinned by collaborative technologies. This paper examines the application of collaborative technology within South Africa’s transport sector, focusing on Gauteng Province’s partnership with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to address road maintenance issues. This partnership resulted in mobile applications, enabling citizens to report road issues directly to authorities and receive responses. The study assesses these technologies as examples of targeted innovation addressing practical needs in infrastructure maintenance. The study concluded with findings suggesting that user-centric app solutions effectively facilitate communication between the public and authorities, demonstrating the power of technology-enabled collaboration to enhance public services and infrastructure upkeep.