Roads.gg also allows anyone to report a temporary road closure just by tapping a button on their smartphone screen.
The idea came to Luke Jameson a few days after the storm when he was near Route de Cobo, which remains closed due to tree damage. He tried to view the States’ web page giving road closure details but found it difficult on his phone.
‘I thought “I can do something about this” and so over the weekend I started having a look,’ he said.
Less than a week later, roads.gg has been launched and in the space of a few days it had been accessed by about 2,000 people.
The site provides a map that uses the data available on the States page but it loads much more quickly and is easier to move around on a phone screen.
It is not an app, with Mr Jameson saying that creating one would have been a lot more involved, but a shortcut to the page can be created to sit alongside apps on a mobile phone.
Once opened, all the colour-coded road information from the States site can be seen and tapping these gives information about the nature of the work, how long it is due to last, the contractor, which bus routes are affected and whether it is a full closure or a one-way system.
The new feature added by Mr Jameson is the ability for people to register with the site and add any road closures they come across that are not already recorded.
All a user has to do is open the page and tap the lightning icon and they can then report an accident, tree down, flooding, roadworks, event or ‘other’, with a different colour ascribed to each.
Tapping an option will add a blob of the relevant colour to the user’s location on the map. Others will be able to see it.
An entry can also be made later on by tapping the + icon and entering the location and details.
Mr Jameson said he hoped to make the facility even more useful in future and would look at allowing people to enter their planned routes and receive an alert if one of those roads is closed.
He also plans to contact the Joint Emergency Services Control Centre to see if it can provide information, either by adding it directly or sending him an alert to let him know of any emergency closures.
Ultimately he hopes that the map can be integrated with Google Maps to give people up-to-the-minute information about local road closures and suggest alternative routes. Some diversions do appear there at the moment, but only if they are long-term.
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