Identifying valuable services within a Smart City. Boston Citizen's Connect.

1. Smart City Services
Prasad Pulikal

2. Introduction
● Detect smart service
● Describe smart service
● Judge the purpose of the service
● Analyze the business model
● Give personal opinion
● Make a conclusion

3. Citizens Connect - Boston

4. City of Boston
▪ Capital and largest city of the state of Massachusetts in the
United States
▪ Estimated population of 636,000.
▪ Mayor Martin J. Walsh
Citizens Connect - Boston

5. Citizens Connect - Boston

6. Citizen Engagement Initiative
The Strategy
1. OPEN: So that residents can understand what their government is doing.
Transparency in the working of the City Government.
1. INFORMATIVE: So that residents can take advantage of services that are
offered, providing timely, relevant information on appropriate channels.
1. EMPOWERING: So that residents can directly shape what their government
does, providing residents with tools and opportunities to bend city resources to
their needs.
Citizens Connect - Boston

7. What is it?
▪ Part of the Boston City’s Citizen Engagement
Technology Initiative.
▪ Citizens Connect is the City of Boston's award-winning
effort to empower residents to be the
City's "eyes and ears”.
▪ Connecting residents to city services: 24 hours a
day, 7 days a week.
▪ The service allows citizens to alert the City of
Boston to neighborhood issues such as potholes,
damaged signs, and graffiti.
▪ Enables real-time collaboration with citizens,
mobile users to become the city’s eyes and ears
How does it work?
Online
Phone - 60% - 250,000 calls
Mobile App - 20%
City Hall To Go
Twitter @CitizensConnect
In Person
Citizens Connect - Boston

8. Citizen’s Connect Mobile App
•Works on Android and iPhones,
•Helps Citizen’s easily report service issues
•Issues can be tracked and status is regularly updated
Citizens Connect - Boston

9. • Report local problems (potholes, illegal trash dumping,
faulty street lights, etc.)
• Suggest solutions for improving their city.
• The submitted issues are displayed on a city's map, whereas
users may add photos votes & comments.
• Users are informed about the resolution process
• The report goes into Lagan CRM system - integrated
management system
• The request is then put in a queue on an Android phone
carried by a city worker using an app called CityWorker.
• CRM is connected to the Boston About Results (BAR)
performance metering system to review CIty Departments.
Citizens Connect - Boston
Key Features

10. Is it a Success?
- 20 % of citizen requests come via mobile channel
- 22% increase in citizen satisfaction with city services in the past two years.
Citizens Connect - Boston

11. Challenges
●Very easy to add fake issues from anywhere in the
world
●Additional workforce (with IT knowledge) to
implement, maintain the service.
Citizens Connect - Boston

12. Citizens Connect - Boston
Benefit to the Citizens
Is it a valuable or required
service?
Profitability of the service
Will it be successful in the
future?
● Simple and easy
reporting.
● Real time, on
location reporting
● Time
● Real time tracking
● Adds value to the
existing public
grievance and
redressal system.
● Valuable in terms of
time and ease of
reporting
● 20% of citizen
requests come via
the mobile channel
● Service saves a lot of
money for the local
city government.
● Reduces the number
of workforce
required to manage
every single corner
or street within the
city.
● Depends on support
from the City /
Government
Municipality
● Adoption of similar
service by cities
across the world.
● Currently in its 5th
year of
implementation.
● 2010 - 2011 - 11%
● 2012 - 2013 - 20%
usage.
Overview

13. Awards, Recognition, Expansion
• 2011 Government Computer News Awards for IT Achievement.
• Commonwealth Connect built upon the success of Boston's award-winning
Citizens Connect app
• enables 140+ Massachusetts communities to provide a uniquely branded mobile
app to their residents.
• The app can be used to report issues to the appropriate local municipality, even
when the user doesn’t know which department or municipality should respond.
• “Citizen-Centered Governance:
The Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics and the Evolution of CRM in Boston”
Case Study By Susan Crawford and Dana Walters.
Citizens Connect - Boston

14. Help your town build such a service
Improve My City
An Open Source application developed by the project of CIP program is
scaling worldwide!
Using “Improve My City” Application local government agencies enable
citizens and local actors to take action to improve their city.
The application is distributed for free, under AGPL v3 open source license.
Anyone who wishes can download it from the GitHub website:
https://github.com/icos-urenio/Improve-my-city
Citizens Connect - Boston

15. THANKS!