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The unintended consequence of Street Bump citizen sensing- via edweek

The initiative, dubbed “Street Bump,” is meant to leverage data from drivers’ smartphones to help detect where potholes are on the city’s roads. Drivers place their smartphones somewhere in their car’s interior and when a pothole-induced “bump” is detected, that data is sent to the city, so the pothole can be identified and fixed.

While great in theory, the project has one major flaw, Kate Crawford of MIT said: It only captures data from parts of the city where there is a high population of smartphones. And as smartphone usage is predominantly higher in the wealthier parts of the city, the lower-income areas of Boston are somewhat left in the dust. What’s more, areas of Boston with large elderly populations – which are also less likely to own smartphones – are left to fend off those pesky potholes on their own.

The program inadvertently directed repair crews to wealthier neighborhoods.