Adelaide taps citizen power for mobile pothole spotting


By GovTechReview Staff
Friday, 15 February, 2013


Improving field service and customer responsiveness aren’t just about putting new faces on old data sources; many councils are enlisting the help of their ratepayers to identify problems that can be triaged to appropriate council staff.

South Australia’s Adelaide City Council has taken a bold step in this direction with the release of Adelaide Report It!, an app that lets iPhone, Android, and Blackberry users report issues ranging from graffiti to potholes and faulty lights across Adelaide city and North Adelaide.

Developed by web-apps firm Freedom Speaks LLC and based on a similar platform from CitySourced, the app taps into the phone’s GPS to pinpoint their locations, allowing users to

attach photographs and written reports that will direct council officers to the relevant locations. This lets them be reviewed and actioned, if necessary, far faster than if the council relied exclusively on council officers to patrol and identify the issues.

This case study formed part of a feature that was originally published in the April/May 2012 issue of Government Technology Review.

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