Trieste: a mobile system to deal efficiently with daily city matters
The Municipality of Trieste
With a population of about 200 000 people, Trieste is the capital city of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, in north-eastern Italy.
The Challenge
Due to the large amount of work entrusted to its offices, the Municipality of Trieste struggled to be informed of and to respond to the many daily problems reported by city residents. At the same time, it was difficult for residents to know which specific office they had to contact to put forward requests and proposals, or to inform the administration about issues concerning services such as public transport, street conditions, waste management, green areas, and street lights, among others. The Municipality of Trieste was hence looking for viable solutions to maintain a smooth and continuous dialogue with city residents, in order to better understand their needs and to inform them of any relevant issue concerning the local territory.
The satellite solution
The solution to these needs has been provided by “Comuni-Chiamo”, a system created by a group of students for the City of Bologna and today used by more than 80 Italian local authorities. The system consists of an online management software allowing residents to send and monitor requests to the city authorities through a web page or their smartphones. Residents can choose among 11 categories of matters – such as streets, water, lighting, waste- and can report related problems, such as damaged street or leaking pipes. Each entry has GPS coordinates attached and can include pictures and comments. At first, the report is received by the Public Relations Office of the City, which verifies its relevance and informs the competent office. According to the number of entries related to each issue, the system automatically grades its priority. This allows city authorities to have a timely understanding of residents’ needs and priorities, and to act accordingly. On their side, residents can follow the status of their requests in real time.
The results
Residents clearly appreciate the functions of the application and the opportunity to follow the status of their request. Since 2012, 1500 entries per year have been recorded into the system. Thanks to the reporting system, the municipality of Trieste is able to communicate smoothly with its residents and to solve daily local problems with less time and resources. Moreover, the data collected through Comuni-Chiamo is used by the Municipality to build real-time statistics and periodical reports about city management trends. In 2013 Comuni-Chiamo has been awarded in the Social App Italia competition, and in 2015 at the Bocconi Start-Up Award.
C. Tosolin, Social Media Manager, Municipality of Trieste