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  •   over 8 years ago

Google Maps based Web app which shows a Real-time view of the Electricity situation in the city

Hi fellow hackers, I'm a python enthusiast with experience in full stack development. My idea is to create a Google Maps based Web app which shows a real-time view of the electricity situation in the twin cities.

Using polygon overlays, we can indicate areas which are suffering from electricity breakdown or are scheduled for loadshedding, on a Google Map.

This map will ideally serve as a guide for people who are planning to visit a far away commercial area within the city but don't know whether there will be electricity there by the time they visit or not. Suppose I want to buy some electronics gadget from a market in Blue Area, and I am leaving my home in Bahria Town. The travelling takes 1 hour in peak traffic and by the time I reach there, scheduled loadshedding just happens. I will have to waste an hour waiting for electricity so that I can check and buy my electronics gadget. However, if I had knowledge about the scheduled loadshedding in Blue Area, I would have scheduled my trip accordingly. This is the concept behind my Loadshedding Map app.

For my teammates, I'm looking for:
- A good front-end developer who can work on any framework (Bootstrap, PureCSS etc.) and handle user interfaces.
- A communication person who can gather information from his/her social circle (in our project we would need info about loadshedding schedules from people living in different areas of the twin cities RWP/ISB).
- And anyone who feels a connection with the project's potential as a fruitful social vibe.
I myself will be happy to work on the back-end development of the Web app.

You're all Welcome.

  • 10 comments

  •   •   over 8 years ago

    Hey Hisham, It's almost ominous how this link is dead:
    http://www.iesco.com.pk/index.php/customer-services/load-shedding-schedule

    Do have any alternate data sources in mind though? This feels like the kind of information that should be stuffed away somewhere on an Institution's website.

    PS: Want a break from front-end work for the extent of this hackathon, would've been an fun thing to do though!

  •   •   over 8 years ago

    Hi Faez,
    IESCO has an SMS based electricity assistant service called ROSHNI which can be invoked by sending an SMS to 8398. Surprisingly this SMS service is currently active and shows a pretty accurate loadshedding schedule. I'll try contacting their team to get their help with setting up a loadshedding schedule database.

    You can try their services by sending an SMS to 8398, more info on their twitter: https://twitter.com/roshni8398

    Thank you for your interest! I appreciate that.

  •   •   over 8 years ago

    Scheduled load-shedding isn't as big a problem as unscheduled is which disappears for more than couple of hours at times. Do you think you'd be able to track that? Plus, markets esp electronics are big on using generators so it's almost never causes an inconvenience.

  •   •   over 8 years ago

    Does enough of Pakistan complain about unscheduled loadshedding on twitter?

  •   •   over 8 years ago

    +1 on the IESCO helpline. Would be a much more avant garde map if KE has something similar lol

  •   •   over 8 years ago

    Well, in the first phase the Web app can show a proof of concept by becoming a Map for scheduled loadshedding. If that goes well, the next phase can be to have a pool of trusted users (IESCO consumers from all areas of ISB/RWP) who can tweet/message to our social media accounts about breakdowns of electricity in their areas and we can display those alerts on our loadshedding Maps.

    For example: Faez from Sector I8/3, who already registered as a volunteer to our project, tweets about an electricity breakdown in his area. We have a server which monitors our twitter handle and picks up Faez's tweet and then maps it onto our Realtime Loadshedding Map as a unscheduled breakdown.

    A critical mass of maybe a couple hundred of such registered volunteers from different areas of the twin cities might helps us create a fairly accurate Realtime Loadshedding Map. And all they have to do is to tweet in a certain predefined format to report an electricity breakdown in their area.

    Its a way to curse WAPDA or IESCO but in a way that helps others too :D

  •   •   over 8 years ago

    Sounds awesome!

  •   •   over 8 years ago

    The Map can look something like this: https://res.cloudinary.com/vertigo-studio-srl/image/upload/v1461141809/screenshot-5_keycwm.png

    - The Red area can be the one going through unscheduled loadshedding
    - Grey area can be the one going through scheduled loadshedding

    I am a bit concerned about the boundaries of areas, like how would we know that how many streets of Sector I8/3 have a shared electricity breakdown schedule etc. IESCO doesn't have a geographical map of its electricity distribution system, so that will be a challenge. One way might be to suppose that all of the sector goes dark simultaneously, and only alter it if we have conflicting reports, like when someone reports that the last 2 streets aren't synced with the rest of the sector etc.

  •   •   over 8 years ago

    I'd suggest storing the map-segments as nodes on a quadtree and fetching the appropriate resolution of the map based upon the data density you have available.

    An option for doing this in python is to use a the geojson-renderer on jupyter-lab which would take care of the entire mapping process for you if you generate the appropriate geojson.

  •   •   over 8 years ago

    @Hamid Akhtar

    Thank you for the motivation. I'll be happy to run this project as a community driven, however an integration with IESCO definitely can be sorted out if they show interest.

    I digged a bit about any projects by IESCO to have a GIS mapping for their distribution system, and I came across this Invitation for Bidding by IESCO for a GIS surveying and mapping services:
    http://www.nawaiwaqt.com.pk/E-Paper/Lahore/2017-02-24/page-10/detail-11

    I wonder who won the bid, since I can't get hold of the PPRA website (ppra.org.pk).

    Also, USAID - IESCO 2013 Report states that they have completed GIS mapping for Jhelum and Gujjar Khan Divisions: http://iesco.com.pk/templates/iesco/downloads/usaid-fact2013.pdf

    It seems like IESCO or the company that won the bid for the GIS mapping can help us a lot if we get hold of someone inside the company. Lets hope for the best while we do our part.

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