311, people get geo (the call of citizenry) - Geocensos english version more

311, people get geo On the internet, the action of Crowdsourcing consists in sharing a task or function - that previous to internet was the domain of a particular agent - relying on the masses of Internet users; distributed in isolation and convened without restrictions. A “geographic” twist to this concept is volunteered geographic information (VGI), term coined by the geographer Michael Goodchild in 2007, which refers to people as sensors in the territory that voluntarily serve, create, gather and spread geographical data. Some Governments have begun to use these concepts to accomplish certain tasks before allocated to certain institutions. For example, 311 is a municipal telephone number used in numerous cities of innovative countries such as United States, Canada, Germany, Australia and even Panama. This number is used for numerous functions of early warning, excluding those of emergencies, in order to report problems in public service domains: traffic and public lights, potholes in the streets, illegal fire starting, annoying noises, etc. The use of this system "referenced in the masses" means many advantages - obvious and not so obvious, economic and administrative - among others: 1) significantly improving citizen participation 2) avoiding unnecessary calls to emergency numbers (usually 911) 3) saving lots of money on monitoring trips to the field, focusing on the action of the municipalities in the reported problems and consecuently 4) avoiding regularly covering the whole surface of the municipal territory. Indeed, the problem that 311 numbers attempt to solve is how to approach the issue of the territory. The total coverage of the municipal administrative surface can be a daunting task, especially for local governments that do not have sufficient resources for the planning of services, not to speak when it comes to the supervision of existing public services. However, they have an apparently silent and still unnoticed ally: the Legion of twiterers, facebookers, socially networked and many more that are using their PC and smart phones to make its presence felt in the www and especially in their cities. With these mobile and geolocated technologies, volunteered geoinformation makes sense. Citizens can be at the same time of censors and sensors pro bono in aid of the busy city with the management of its services. A catalyst for this growing trend is the portal citysourced.com, a site created in the year 2009 and focused on geolocated concerned complaints from citizens of 20 major cities in the U.S., based on the digital mapping of Bing, the version of Microsoft browser. The application provides a single platform to identify civic problems (public security, quality of life, environmental issues, etc.) and report them to the local municipality for a speedy resolution. This helps the Government to save time and money while improving accountability to their constituencies. It is also a platform for positive real action, in a collaborative environment. A version of a South American "geolocalized" 311, though partial, is the of the mapa de cortes de tránsito of the ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, which seeks to make bearable the daily bustle of pedestrians, tourists and drivers. The initiative attempts to locate, based on google maps, different disturbances in the city flow of traffic, disruptions due to repairs and street maintenance, buildings in construction, traffic lights out of service and demonstrations such as the locally known "piquetes" ( slum demonstrations), but in real time. A complementary initiative is Waze , an Israeli start-up that addresses the problem from the perspective of the driver. When driving, the mobile application - available for Iphone, Android and Symbian phones - automatically feeds a stream of data in real time in the Waze search engine (such as the average speed and current location of the car). Users can also send text updates and photos to help other drivers to be updated on the status of transit in the area to handle. All these initiatives are setting a new course. One in which citizens, once again, are making their call to local authorities to upgrade their planning systems allowing them to claim for their rights, helping at the same time to build the service they deserve. Copyright © 2012 - Javier Carranza Tresoldi –All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part, or translation without written permission is prohibited. All rights reserved