Characterizing New Channels of Communication: A Case Study of Municipal 311 Requests in Edmonton, Canada

Abstract

City governments around the world are developing and expanding how they connect to citizens. Technologies play an important role in making this connection, and one frequent way that cities connect with citizens is through 311-style request systems. 311 is a non-emergency municipal notification system that uses telephone, email, web forms, and increasingly, mobile applications to allow citizens to notify government of infrastructure issues and make requests for municipal services. In many ways, this process of citizen contribution mirrors the provision of volunteered geographic information, that is spatially-referenced user generated content. This research presents a case study of the city of Edmonton, Canada, an early adopter of multi-channel 311 service request systems, including telephone, email, web form, and mobile app 311 request channels. Three methods of analysis are used to characterize and compare these different channels over three years of request data; a comparison of relative request share for each channel, a spatial hot spot analysis, and regression models to compare channel usage with sociodemographic variables. The results of this study indicate a shift in channel usage from traditional to Internet-enabled, that this shift is mirrored in the hotspots of request activity, and that specific digital inequalities exist that reinforce this distinction between traditional and Internetenabled reporting channels.

Canadian smart cities: Are we wiring new citizen‐local government interactions?

“…The term “smart city” describes technological approaches to the development of more efficient, sustainable, open, and inclusive cities (Bakıcı et al 2013; Albino et al 2015). For example, smart city initiatives may aim to use cameras and sensors to optimize traffic signals to ease urban congestion, implement a connected bicycle sharing system, develop a municipal smartphone application to enable citizen reporting of municipal issues, or deploy sensors across the city to monitor real‐time air pollution (Lu and Johnson 2016; Gupta et al 2018). Within the smart cities' discourse, key topics include the involvement of citizens, including concepts of engagement of citizens in the creation of smart city plans and in the implementation of smart city projects (Bakıcı et al 2013; Calzada 2018; Shelton and Lodato 2018).…”

Gouvernance municipale et information: étude exploratoire sur l’utilisation optimale des données 311

“…Plusieurs auteurs affirment qu’à leurs débuts, les CANU représentaient un moyen inédit de lier les citoyens à leurs gouvernements (Fleming 2008a; Lu et Johnson 2016; Clark et coll. 2013; Nam 2012).…”

“…Ainsi, le citoyen peut contribuer à une meilleure connaissance des besoins, des problèmes et des enjeux municipaux en devenant un point d’observation. Le citoyen agit comme « environmental sensors producing rich information and data that can be incorporated into management and decision‐making» (Lu et Johnson 2016 : 19). Dans ce rôle de « superviseur et de rapporteur », la contribution des citoyens peut permettre de réduire les coûts monétaires et humains rattachés à l’identification des besoins (Clark et coll.…”

“…2013). Ainsi, en s’appuyant sur une technologie plus sophistiquée qui exercerait une analyse de la masse de données collectées, un CANU pourrait permettre l’instauration d’une communication bidirectionnelle entre le citoyen et le gouvernement (Lu et Johnson 2016), mais surtout une proactivité informée et mieux fondée dans les interventions municipales. L’usage de technologies de pointe rejoint donc des ambitions associées à l’e‐gouvernement 2 .…”

Trends in Citizen-Generated and Collaborative Urban Infrastructure Feedback Data: Toward Citizen-Oriented Infrastructure Management in Japan

“…Offenhuber also compared the design of the feedback system and investigated user motivation. Likewise, Lu and Johnson [22] examined the geographical features and hot spots of 311 services in Edmonton City using about 170,000 records of citizen-reporting data. Based on this statistical data, their paper analyzes the geographical distribution of requests by 1-km grid cell units and the coefficients of the population and the social attributes of the area based on statistical data.…”