Use your iPhone to report a problem?

Via a teaser article on Slashdot, I found an article, “Citizens as public sensors,” on the O’Reilly Radar blog about a service called SeeClickFix.  The basic idea is that citizens can report issues in their city, from graffiti to fallen trees to inadequate housing.  What distinguishes this service from the others individually implemented in cities is that the information is publicly accessible.

So, for example, you can see the listings for Phoenix.  Scarce, definitely.  Phoenix, as far as I can tell, does not officially participate.  Surprise, Arizona does, however.  [Another example of a small suburb/exurb adopting participatory technology at a faster pace than Phoenix.]  You can see this issue, that Litchfield Road does not have sufficiently visible lane striping, has been responded to by a member of Surprise’s customer service team, otherwise known as 222-care.  Here is the exchange:

Original Report: N. Litchfield Rd. north of Bell Rd. needs to have new lane striping , especially in the southbound lane. Lane markings are faded or non-existant because of previous road repair. 17001-17535 N Litchfield Rd,Surprise,AZ 85374,USA

The issue was acknowledged within two days by the city of Surprise.  The next day, the city responded with:

Thank you for bringing this to the attention of the City of Surprise. According to the Traffic Engineering department “This section of road is actually scheduled to be re-striped this fiscal year so it won’t be long.”
Our fiscal year ends on June 30, so the re-striping will be completed before then.

And the residents was supremely satisfied, saying, “Thank you very much. This (Click Fix) is a great service!”  Another satisfied resident, a true safety issue that other residents have surely noticed is fixed, and the city is able to distribute resources more efficiently to the problems that citizens are noticing the most.

This service, of course, requires the city’s involvement to make it work most effectively.  And, the more citizens that use it, the more effective it can become.  And a final caveat is about equity.  When discussing any web or computer-based technology, a large city like Phoenix needs to always pay attention to issues of accessibility of computers and the internet, as well as ensuring that citizens know they can report these issues.

There must be a balance, then, between ensuring that every citizen has a preferred way to access city government.  This means that the city should cater to the citizens with access to and knowledge of these new technologies, but they must also maintain current or better systems for citizens who cannot access these services.  Everyone must have an equal opportunity to report problems in their community, and the city has the responsibility to respond to everyone’s requests with equal weight, allowing for fluctuations depending on near-term construction projects or previously scheduled maintenance.

Too often, reporting mechanisms depend on the “lowest common denominator,” meaning the most accessible forms of reporting.  For example, some cities may rely only on phone calls to report neighborhood problems.  However, that current system can be maintained while new technology is also implemented.  As long as the response to the report of a problem is addressed with the same gravity regardless of the method used to report it, I believe equity is maintained.

Writing a blog post about this makes me think that I should write my upcoming paper on methods of citizen engagement, especially web and mobile technologies.  I’ll have to propose that to Dr. Svara.