Good practice:

4myCity

The city of Kalamaria uses a service to manage problems/incidents located within the jurisdiction of the Municipality. “4myCity” is designed to ease citizens to monitor reports addressed and/or report possible problems/incidents within the Municipality, but also to suggest improvements in the area. Thus, the relevant departments of the Municipality are up-to-date about the claims of the citizens any time (through reliable statistics on the flow and frequency of problems received by the system) and decide and organize their policy to manage the problems/ incidents.
Citizens’ contribution is achieved through:
• reporting a problem/incident identified in an area of the Municipality of Kalamaria
• recording an incident just when it happens – on time
• suggesting ways to improve and resolve a situation
• expression of their complaints directly to the Municipality
All the above, through a user-friendly web interface and mobile app!
A very interesting element of the service is the incorporation of social media illustrations (like thumps) into the interactive maps that can provide a direct citizen’s feedback on problems that other users have identified, thus, avoiding duplications in reporting. At the same time, users can comment to the report of another user. This “confirmation” tool enables the better identification of the most urgent issues, as perceived by the citizens and allow for a more immediate reaction.

Approximately 13.000 € for the set-up of the service

Around 2400 reports and 5000 comments have been submitted within 2017-2019. Top “confirmations” to other users’ reports are related to the accessibility of the sidewalks and issues of abandoned vehicles.
Within year 2019, approximately 3.500 persons visited the web service (83% increase in relation to 2018).
The Municipality is now able to recognize intervention areas and better organize the supplies necessary for solving all the problems.

The key challenge for the Municipality is mostly related to having the internal cooperating structure and capacity to reply to the issues reported. Another challenge is to convince/ educate the society on the use of the new technological possibilities.

This application can be used as a crowdsourcing tool by any municipality that wishes to engage citizens in identifying and prioritizing problems, thus informing the local planning in various areas such as mobility, recycling, city lighting, etc. The application serves as an open window of communication between the local authority and the citizens, thus supporting active citizenship and increasing citizens awareness over a variety of topics.
Prerequisites for the adoption are related to having the appropriate municipal internal structure and ensuring the capacity for replying to the reports/ complaints.
Additionally, engagement techniques for raising citizens’ awareness on the new services are necessary to be segmented to the needs of the audience.
For the set-up of the software, no specific requirements apply, as it is based on open- source platform and no special licences (i.e. database) are required.