Fix Your Street - Does it work or waste of time?

Auld Jim Halpin

fixyourstreet.ie - A website set up in 2011 by South Dublin County Council as a way for citizens to log faults relating to street lighting, potholes, litter etc. Originally was just used for SDCC but now is nationwide with all councils from all counties using it.

Does it work as intended is my question. Have you reported a fault and then had it remedied in an acceptable time frame?

Personally I have logged 6 or 7 faults ranging from those nasty Cash for Cars stickers that appear all over the place to local road conditions that I felt were dangerous - e.g. poor lighting or no warning signage of a hidden exit etc.

My personal findings:

1. It can take a week or longer before you get any acknowledgement that you made the report.
2. Sometimes you get no acknowledgement at all.
3. Acknowledgements are always of the pre-made variety - e.g. Your email has been forwarded to xyz department
4. There will rarely be any further updates after this - no eta on fix, no mention of who is to carry out work, no background information on fault
5. Acknowledgments are never from a specific person so you cannot follow up with anybody on the report.
6. Many faults are never actioned at all.
7. The map on the website is infuriating to use, always has a loading bar across it and sometimes you have to reload the page to get it working again.
8. Finding old faults to check for updates or for referencing is often impossible or at best difficult (convenient for some people!, not for the reporters of the faults).
9. When you load the page it is pre-set to load only recent active faults to the map and therefore masking the real level of active faults.
10. It says its in beta mode at the top and will be upgraded and improved - this has never happened as far as I can make out.
11. Generally a poor interface that is slow and annoying to use.
12. Whenever there is a fix there is no update that it has been done so you could only be sure be checking it out yourself.
13. Sometimes acknowledgements ask for more information, like location of rubbish or for name of person who committed offense (!!) - this occurs when location is clearly described AND marked on their map and is presumably done as a stalling tactic or in the hope the reported may give up and go away. As for the who committed offense, that is not a good thing to ask, opens up all sorts of issues. That is asking the citizen to to do the job of the council and is potentially putting them in danger.

Okay in the big scheme of things potholes and bags of rubbish are not big news but they are important to people on a local level and on a day to day basis. Government are always on about being more civic minded and that citizens have a part to play blah de blah but this website, IMO, does not support this way of thinking. I often wish we could dispense with the smoke and mirrors and just get real truth of the situation, that is your local council couldn't give a toss about the average man or woman on the street - at least this way we would know where we stand and could deal with it ourselves at a community level.

When the site started I thought fixyoursteet.ie was going to be a great idea, using Information Technologies to solve a problem of communication and also saving money and creating efficiencies but it seems to me to be a handy way for councils to hide and to get those pesky people off their back with their annoying phone calls and emails and letters.

To summarize, does Fix Your Street work for you or should we go back to the old and probably more effective way of ringing the council and getting the name of a person and holding them to account. Or maybe calling your local elected Councillor?

Finally, if it does work for you can you say which council successfully came through on your report.

For me, my reports were going to South Dublin County Council (SDCC) or Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council (DLRCC).

Thanks.

expectationlost

Auld Jim Halpin wrote: »

fixyourstreet.ie - A website set up in 2011 by South Dublin County Council as a way for citizens to log faults relating to street lighting, potholes, litter etc. Originally was just used for SDCC but now is nationwide with all councils from all counties using it.

Does it work as intended is my question. Have you reported a fault and then had it remedied in an acceptable time frame?

Personally I have logged 6 or 7 faults ranging from those nasty Cash for Cars stickers that appear all over the place to local road conditions that I felt were dangerous - e.g. poor lighting or no warning signage of a hidden exit etc.

My personal findings:

1. It can take a week or longer before you get any acknowledgement that you made the report.
2. Sometimes you get no acknowledgement at all.
3. Acknowledgements are always of the pre-made variety - e.g. Your email has been forwarded to xyz department
4. There will rarely be any further updates after this - no eta on fix, no mention of who is to carry out work, no background information on fault
5. Acknowledgments are never from a specific person so you cannot follow up with anybody on the report.
6. Many faults are never actioned at all.
7. The map on the website is infuriating to use, always has a loading bar across it and sometimes you have to reload the page to get it working again.
8. Finding old faults to check for updates or for referencing is often impossible or at best difficult (convenient for some people!, not for the reporters of the faults).
9. When you load the page it is pre-set to load only recent active faults to the map and therefore masking the real level of active faults.
10. It says its in beta mode at the top and will be upgraded and improved - this has never happened as far as I can make out.
11. Generally a poor interface that is slow and annoying to use.
12. Whenever there is a fix there is no update that it has been done so you could only be sure be checking it out yourself.
13. Sometimes acknowledgements ask for more information, like location of rubbish or for name of person who committed offense (!!) - this occurs when location is clearly described AND marked on their map and is presumably done as a stalling tactic or in the hope the reported may give up and go away. As for the who committed offense, that is not a good thing to ask, opens up all sorts of issues. That is asking the citizen to to do the job of the council and is potentially putting them in danger.

Okay in the big scheme of things potholes and bags of rubbish are not big news but they are important to people on a local level and on a day to day basis. Government are always on about being more civic minded and that citizens have a part to play blah de blah but this website, IMO, does not support this way of thinking. I often wish we could dispense with the smoke and mirrors and just get real truth of the situation, that is your local council couldn't give a toss about the average man or woman on the street - at least this way we would know where we stand and could deal with it ourselves at a community level.

When the site started I thought fixyoursteet.ie was going to be a great idea, using Information Technologies to solve a problem of communication and also saving money and creating efficiencies but it seems to me to be a handy way for councils to hide and to get those pesky people off their back with their annoying phone calls and emails and letters.

To summarize, does Fix Your Street work for you or should we go back to the old and probably more effective way of ringing the council and getting the name of a person and holding them to account. Or maybe calling your local elected Councillor?

Finally, if it does work for you can you say which council successfully came through on your report.

For me, my reports were going to South Dublin County Council (SDCC) or Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council (DLRCC).

Thanks.

send the above to a local councillor

did you try using try using http://www.fixmystreet.ie which go to the same place via an api

might be a little better experience, but it won't fix the lack of detailed response from the council, the site is actually run by SDCC for the rest of the country

they done a lot of back end work getting all the councils on board and their systems hooked up but they are very slow to change the front end and provide clearer timelines

there's also fixmyarea.com

you can set up an email alert area on fixyourstreet

you can submit through seeclickfix.com too

jimmycrackcorm

Used it to report broken glass on a cycle route and passed the sweeper truck cleaning it the following day.

Sacksian

A couple of years ago, I used FixMyStreet to report a leak on our street to DCC - and that was fixed fairly promptly.

I also used it to report a pothole in the cycle lane on the North Circular Road and that was fixed pretty quickly too.

I guess it just gets something added to the queue rather than necessarily ensuring it's a priority, but I'd imagine anything serious gets done more quickly than something they'd consider less serious.

I think the lack of tailored, personal communication is deliberate, and probably sensible/pragmatic too. If they had to report back to individuals on the progress of council work for every report, it would probably slow things down further.

Alun

I've used fixmystreet.ie a couple of times to report things, and on the face of it they appeared to be fixed fairly quickly, but I got no acknowledgement, and absolutely zero feedback that it was my report that caused it to be fixed, so I don't really know if it's worth my while reporting them, or whether they'd be fixed anyway.

My County Council (Wicklow) have an appalling record anyway when it comes to electronic communication. 3 years ago I emailed their Environmental department about something .. it's so long ago, I can't remember what any more. The address for the dept. on their website was obviously not a single contact point, but a mailing list for the entire department. I foolishly put a request for a read receipt on the email, and I'm still receiving responses to that email today, 3 years later!!

marcus2000

Alun wrote: »

I've used fixmystreet.ie a couple of times to report things, and on the face of it they appeared to be fixed fairly quickly, but I got no acknowledgement, and absolutely zero feedback that it was my report that caused it to be fixed, so I don't really know if it's worth my while reporting them, or whether they'd be fixed anyway.

I had the same experience. Reported a big pothole near my house....after about a week or two later, I had heard nothing and was about to do a followup when I released they had actually sorted it......just without any acknowledgement or feedback. it was all pretty quickly, so I assume it was because of the report. It would be good to hear back though.

Larbre34

Ive had 3 or 4 incidents of illegal dumping or illegal / dangerous advertising acted upon when I reported them to fixyourstreet, usually within two or three days

In my case it was reports to Fingal County Council and I would commend the service level.

Muahahaha

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

Used it to report broken glass on a cycle route and passed the sweeper truck cleaning it the following day.

I did likewise during the summer and in fairness the glass was gone the next time I cycled that route, approx 4 days later.

Other than that I reported 2 streetlights with bulbs gone near to me- they've been gone well over a year now and ironically enough they are right outside a majr ESB depot. Anyway that was last September, I got an email a while later to fill in a survey asking if it was fixed, how long it took, etc. In the end the system advised me to contact the council myself directly. Seeing as their system had already contact the council on my behalf and they'd done nothing about it in several months I just didn't bother anymore.

I think the actual Fix My Street website is very good, user friendly, etc. There's not much that they site can do though if the council don't do their end of the job. Perhaps a national database of councils, ranked by jobs reported but left undone might spur some into action.

Auld Jim Halpin

Thanks for the replies. It seems varying degrees of success using fixyourstreet.ie and fixmystreet.ie

I take Sacksians point regarding non-personalised communication in the interest of speed but I could also see a situation where somebody reports a dangerous situation that is not dealt with promptly and somebody is injured before it is dealt with, in that situation there needs to be some degree of transparency and accountability. E.g. - Pothole in road, reported 10 times by multiple people, not fixed, pothole causes accident, who is at fault?

Expectationlost, Thanks for the info, fixmyarea.com is a new one for me and I will have a look at it and see how it goes. Same goes for seeclickfix.com, (great name!), I will check it out. At first glance it appears to address some of the points I made. Acknowledgements are made by a specific operator such as "Dispatch 11" , updates on repair are given and even the original reporter gets to say well done and thanks.

So its a thumbs up to Fingal CC, DCC and Wicklow CC for prompt repair of important issues anyway, thats good to hear. I wonder if they graded the severity of the report might it help to manage expectations on timeframe for potential fix.

Personally I recently made a report on dangerous pedestrian crossing, warning signs were facing the path and not to the road users. Problem was fixed within a week but never got ack to my report so don't know if my input helped to fix or not. Its still on the system as an active report.

In 2012 I reported a very large pile of builders rubble, steel, polystyrene etc in my area. I gave precise info on amount and dimensions (2 tons approx), and its location. They replied to ask me where it was, I again gave location and asked for Litter Warden to look for him/herself. No further updates after that. Pile of rubble is still there and probably home to cats or rats or worse. SDCC. Fault is still on the system as an active fault. Naturally I wonder to myself would I better of ignoring it and not getting involved and not being peed off from lack of action.

Finally, if one of these methods of reporting works then great but why have 3/4 different websites, surely that complicates things (unless all using the same API?).

I would have thought from the County Councils point of view that if all faults were fixed (theoretically) and they had a blank slate that they would be in a good position to stay on top of new reports and would have a better understanding of where they stand and what resources they need. I mean never before have they had this ability to quickly get reports in and categorised and assigned using an IT system.

expectationlost

Auld Jim Halpin wrote: »

Thanks for the replies. It seems varying degrees of success using fixyourstreet.ie and fixmystreet.ie

I take Sacksians point regarding non-personalised communication in the interest of speed but I could also see a situation where somebody reports a dangerous situation that is not dealt with promptly and somebody is injured before it is dealt with, in that situation there needs to be some degree of transparency and accountability. E.g. - Pothole in road, reported 10 times by multiple people, not fixed, pothole causes accident, who is at fault?

Expectationlost, Thanks for the info, fixmyarea.com is a new one for me and I will have a look at it and see how it goes. Same goes for seeclickfix.com, (great name!), I will check it out. At first glance it appears to address some of the points I made. Acknowledgements are made by a specific operator such as "Dispatch 11" , updates on repair are given and even the original reporter gets to say well done and thanks.

So its a thumbs up to Fingal CC, DCC and Wicklow CC for prompt repair of important issues anyway, thats good to hear. I wonder if they graded the severity of the report might it help to manage expectations on timeframe for potential fix.

Personally I recently made a report on dangerous pedestrian crossing, warning signs were facing the path and not to the road users. Problem was fixed within a week but never got ack to my report so don't know if my input helped to fix or not. Its still on the system as an active report.

In 2012 I reported a very large pile of builders rubble, steel, polystyrene etc in my area. I gave precise info on amount and dimensions (2 tons approx), and its location. They replied to ask me where it was, I again gave location and asked for Litter Warden to look for him/herself. No further updates after that. Pile of rubble is still there and probably home to cats or rats or worse. SDCC. Fault is still on the system as an active fault. Naturally I wonder to myself would I better of ignoring it and not getting involved and not being peed off from lack of action.

Finally, if one of these methods of reporting works then great but why have 3/4 different websites, surely that complicates things (unless all using the same API?).

I would have thought from the County Councils point of view that if all faults were fixed (theoretically) and they had a blank slate that they would be in a good position to stay on top of new reports and would have a better understanding of where they stand and what resources they need. I mean never before have they had this ability to quickly get reports in and categorised and assigned using an IT system.

a lot of the councils already had their own systems, I would still use the site, fixyourstreet is the official one that the others feed in it to, see that in having different sites you can choose which one you prefer. If you are interested enough to follow up certain issue maybe when they don't address it after two weeks to a month send it to a councillor and ask them to see what happened and if they could have a more meaningful reply and help improve the system.

the problem is for some unknown reason SDCC chose to use the http://www.ushahidi.com/ system which is wide area map based crowdsourcing system, which is why the map interface is unfriendly for this use, rather then use the fixmystreet, https://www.mysociety.org/ system, which was system that the government named checked in its programme for government, that was designed for this specific purpose of street by street reporting, , which then left it to a volunteer J Handelaar to localise the UK MySociety code for Ireland at fixmystreet.ie

seeclickfix is a worldwide site, see an active Dublin area here http://seeclickfix.com/dublin_city_ire not sure its hooked in maybe it only responsds by hand, ask https://twitter.com/oisinohalmhain about use and response from a users perspective.

I've been asking them for 3 years to change one line of code to make the fixyourstreet more useful (including a link back to the report on the website in the email alert) something Councillors were asking for and they've refused.