A newly launched digital civic engagement platform in Barbados has already surpassed early adoption projections, with road infrastructure complaints and public transit tracking emerging as the two most popular features among local users, according to the app’s developer.
Ramon Dummett, founder and chief executive officer of local tech firm Touch Star — the company behind the Pearly platform — shared details of the app’s early performance in an interview with Barbados TODAY, revealing that the tool has already notched more than 10,000 downloads since its launch. Dummett noted that the overwhelming user engagement signals a major shift toward digitized public participation in the country’s civic processes.
Of all the user-submitted reports logged through the platform’s public portal, pothole damage accounts for the vast majority of submissions. Dummett explained that this trend aligns with everyday experiences for most Barbadians: nearly all residents rely on the island’s road network for daily travel, making damaged pavement one of the most visible and pressing quality-of-life concerns. The platform allows residents to geotag specific road defects and submit reports directly to the relevant government agencies, creating a centralized, searchable database of public infrastructure priorities that was not available through traditional reporting channels.
To handle the unexpected flood of public reports, Dummett said government agencies are currently working through a structured onboarding process to adapt their existing workflows to the new digital system. Touch Star is leading technical implementation, providing hands-on staff training, and offering ongoing operational support across multiple government ministries to streamline the new complaint resolution process. The ultimate goal of the digital overhaul is to cut response times from weeks to days, and in some well-defined cases, just a few hours, Dummett said.
Dummett asked for the public’s patience as agencies adjust to the new system, projecting that operational kinks will be ironed out within one to two months. Once the initial backlog of early reports is cleared, residents will start to see noticeably faster resolutions for their submitted requests, he added.
Beyond infrastructure reporting, Pearly’s real-time public bus tracking feature has quickly become the platform’s second most heavily used tool. The service lets commuters track the exact location of Barbados Transport Board buses in real time, eliminating the uncertainty of waiting at stops for delayed or rerouted services. Dummett noted that the tool delivers tangible quality-of-life benefits, giving back valuable time to residents who would otherwise wait for buses that do not arrive on schedule.
To improve the tracking feature’s reliability across the entire island, Touch Star is currently upgrading the GPS infrastructure installed on the full Transport Board bus fleet. Unlike consumer GPS systems that can suffer from signal dropouts in remote or built-up areas, the Pearly system uses a long-range, highly stable signal network that operates similarly to traditional AM radio, ensuring consistent coverage across the entire island.
Dummett emphasized that Pearly is far more than a simple public complaint app: it functions as a full, comprehensive government operating system built on Touch Star’s proprietary Sunsuite digital platform, which can host multiple civic and administrative tools at once. The architecture is designed to be flexible enough for white-labeling, meaning the core platform could be exported to other countries seeking to digitize their own civic services in the future. Just as general-purpose operating systems like Windows or macOS host a wide range of productivity apps, Pearly’s underlying framework powers multiple interconnected tools to help government agencies manage and track public requests from start to finish.
Touch Star is already preparing to launch several new modules for the platform in the coming months. Upcoming features include real-time emergency alerts, live streams of government public broadcasts, and a dedicated emergency management mode to support vulnerable populations during national crises. The team is also putting the final touches on Pearly Maps, an intelligent traffic management system that leverages anonymized historical transit data from the Transport Board fleet to predict congestion, suggest optimal departure times, and recommend alternate routes before drivers hit gridlock.
Integration for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto is currently in live testing, with the team targeting a full launch of the navigation feature ahead of the upcoming school term, when traffic volume typically increases across the island.
Reflecting on the platform’s early performance, Dummett expressed confidence in his 40-person local engineering team, noting that real-world use over the first few months has already proven the platform is resilient and scalable enough to support national-level public service delivery for Barbados.