Reporting Road Problems in Smart Cities Using OpenIoT Framework - Interoperability and Open-Source Solutions for the Internet of Things - page 169

cameras, as is the case with most current applications, but mainly, on opportunistically
available mobile data sources, e.g., smartphones owned by users. The problem of
crowdsourcing with smartphones is discussed in [ 11 ]. A prototype of a crowdsourced
evidence collection system is presented in [ 7 ]. Though, some principles are similar with
the proposed CityWatcher system, their prototype is developed for laptops, which is
not as ubiquitous and convenient as using smartphones and besides, as a major
drawback, does not incorporate annotating and discovering relevant video recordings.
The number of possible use cases is limited only to requesting the video and the
research challenge of how to deal with the heterogeneous world of IoT is not discussed.
The problem of crowdsourced video annotation is widely discussed in [ 12 ].
As was mentioned above, there are a number of applications, which allow using an
Android smartphone as a VMSC. We will discuss their characteristics and main fea-
tures, typical for applications of this class. Main characteristics of a typical VMSC
emulating application include but aren

t limited to: (a) Free or not?; (b) Video format,
possibility to choose the format; (c) Cycle video recording; (d) Possibility of making
photos; (e) Annotation with timestamp; (f) Annotation with GPS coordinates;
(g) Annotation with location information (street name); (h) Map, navigation; (i) Acting
as a car

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s computer (measuring maximum and average speed, etc.); (j) Possibility of
loading video to the Internet via wireless networks; (k) Indexing signi cant moments

manually or by a sensor; (l) Resource consumption; (m) Possibility of working in
background. Some of the mentioned apps are briefly discussed below:

DailyRoads Voyager complicated

full featured application, supports navigation functionality and can make indexes of
signi

free, easy to use application. Axel Voyager

￿ - -

cant moments.

AVR usual video recording features, image stabilization function, navigation, can

send video to the Internet.

￿ -

AutoBoy BlackBox full featured video player, displays additional information

(speed, compass), very big choice of settings.

￿ -

CaroO Pro - additional functionality includes features, usual for cars computer.

￿

Any of these apps can be used as a VMSC, but none of them support answering
requests to share video recordings and make their video recordings discoverable. In the
proposed CityWatcher application we focus on request processing and answering, so
that interested parties could make use of locally stored and annotated video recordings.
A number of recent interesting projects like ImproveMyCity [ 13 , 14 ], BuitenBeter
(Netherlands) [ 15 ] and Fix My Street (UK) [ 16 , 17 ] discuss “ reporting problems ” use

case. These projects gather citizens reports about city problems via a web site form or

smartphone application for further processing. The user can make a picture of a
problem with a smartphone, select problem type, select a location or use automatic GPS
annotation and send the information to the city council, helping to identify potholes,
stray garbage, broken street lamps and other problems. Some projects like RosYama
(Russia) [ 18 ] and RosZKH (Russia) [ 19 ] gather reports and generate papers of a special
form for sending them by post to municipal or road services. This can be an effective
approach as of

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cial letters, but on the other hand it
produces a lot of unneeded and time consuming manual paper work.

cial services can ' t ignore of