Development of 'Voices of Bridges' for Infrastructure Management

In Yamaguchi Prefecture, periodic inspections of social infrastructure facilities, such as bridges, have become mandatory every five years due to revisions to the Road Act. However, a significant challenge arises from the lack of personnel available to conduct these inspections, especially in rural municipalities. This shortage of staff, combined with the rapid aging of infrastructure, has heightened the risk of accidents and disasters. This paper introduces the "Voices of Bridges" (VoB) system, which leverages citizen participation to address bridge maintenance through a user-friendly, interactive platform. The system's architecture integrates modern web technologies such as Node.js, MySQL, and Google Maps API to allow efficient data handling and visualization. By utilizing open data from Yamaguchi Prefecture and employing crowdsourcing techniques, VoB enables users to report bridge defects while simultaneously augmenting the efforts of local governments in maintaining infrastructure through community engagement.