By TONY TAGLAVORE, Journal Services
You are rattled to the bone when your car hits a pothole.
You are bothered by the sight of cars – or an 18-wheeler – parked in someone’s front yard.
You are worried about the welfare of a horse, or chickens.
If it is after-hours and you’re in Shreveport, you will soon be able to report your issue to the City using a new smart phone application.
Port City 311 is an app that, within 30-60 days, you will be available to download from your phone’s app store. That means you won’t have to take the time to call the City’s appropriate department, or waiting until you have access to a computer to visit the City’s website.
“(Citizens) will be able to use the mobile application to submit photos and questions, and those questions will go to the responsible department,” Shocker Creal, Shreveport’s Chief Technology Officer, told the Shreveport-Bossier Journal. “From there, the department can push a ticket, or reassign it to (the correct) department, and (that department) can respond directly to the citizen.”
The plan is that with this new application, the citizens’ submission will be addressed in a timely manner. Among other things you will be able to report are a fallen tree blocking a road, a chemical spill, or blighted property.
“If I encounter a pothole at 10pm or 4 am, or there’s a major issue, it allows the citizens direct access to our back-end systems,” Creal explained. “They’re able to create a trouble ticket. Work orders are automatically created, and that’s before the front desk personnel log in for the day to start reviewing their messages or voicemail. It puts access and true support from the city at the citizens’ fingertips. It makes it a little more seamless and makes us a little more accessible.”
Port City 311 is the result of Mayor Tom Arceneaux’s desire to make solving issues between the City and its people as easy as possible.
“I hope this application will remove some steps in the issue-solving process,” Mayor Arceneaux told the Journal. “I want our citizens to feel connected and informed. I want them to know their voice is being heard, and their concerns are being taken care of. I am hoping this application will allow for better communication between the citizens of Shreveport and our employees.”
Port City 311’s technology has already been integrated into the City’s website, shreveportla.gov. You can click “Report a Concern”, and the workflow will be the same as the app will provide. The app will replace the “SeeClickFix” app, which the city has been using.
“When the mayor came on, he said he wanted to basically provide better access to city services for the citizens,” Creal said. “That was one of his primary goals. What we noticed with “SeeClickFix” is because it didn’t have that back-end integration into our work order system, there were significant delays between the initial submission from the citizen, and work orders being created and completed by the departments. My goal was to cut out that break point. I made sure to find an application that already had those integrations in place. It streamlines getting the tickets to the desired parties and resolved.”
Creal is working with a third party, Q-Alert, to develop the app, and integrate it into the city’s website.
“I think it’s important for the City of Shreveport to tap into today’s technology to make ourselves more accessible to our citizens,” Mayor Arceneaux said. “I am hoping that by using this technology, specifically this application, we can limit the time it takes citizens to report concerns and limit the time it takes the City to resolve those concerns. We want to use technology to improve the customer service experience at the City of Shreveport.”
Contact Tony at SBJTonyT@gmail.com.