Crowdsorsa mobile game maps 200 km of Rovaniemi bike paths in five days

Rovaniemi used the Crowdsorsa mobile game to survey 200 kilometres of the municipality's bike paths in early May, completing the mapping in five days and capturing around 60% of the network within the first hour, the city said in a press release.

The crowdsourced exercise recruited 39 local participants who filmed routes with their smartphones while collecting in-game rewards. Roughly a quarter of volunteers were teenagers. Total payouts amounted to €735; the top earner received €94.70. Filming was sometimes slowed by wet weather because footage could only be captured in dry conditions.

The video material allowed maintenance teams to identify dangerous pavement cracks and other defects quickly, removing the need for staff to reconnoitre the entire network. "We obtained far more information in a short time than we could have collected on our own. If we had started mapping the entire network ourselves after the grit had been removed, we would not have been able to use the material during the same spring," said maintenance engineer Timo Rytilahti of Rovaniemi city.

"Especially the dangerous cracks on the bike lanes were patched at a multiple of previous years. Patching the cracks improves traffic safety and extends the lifespan of the pavements and structures," Rytilahti added. Asset management specialist Matti Molkoselkä said the Crowdsorsa data was converted into contractor tasks inside the app so repair crews could navigate straight to sites and begin work, with progress visible in real time.

Crowdsorsa CEO Toni Paju called the project a success and said he was surprised by how quickly residents completed the mapping. Crowdsorsa, a Tampere-based startup, has seen its app used in several countries for crowd-collected photo and video mapping of streets, accessibility, invasive species and other urban infrastructure tasks.

The project follows other Crowdsorsa campaigns in Finland including Imatra and echoes a recent mobile-game mapping initiative that recruited local residents in Nekala to map clover for conservation.