Fix My Street allows to have "eyes everywhere"

Brussels

In six years, the number of reported incidents per day has almost doubled.

Garbage bags that invade a street corner, defective lighting, a damaged road or loose poles, these are situations that are part of the daily lives of Brussels but sometimes take time to be resolved. However, since 2013, we have the choice to go ahead without reacting or report them via Fix My Street (a website and an application) that greatly simplifies the steps to report an incident to the competent authority. And it works. Since the launch of the platform, the number of reported incidents has almost doubled.

"By simplifying the way to report a problem on a road, citizens allow us to intervene more quickly on an ad hoc basis and thus help us to improve the state of the public space"says Camille Thiry, spokesperson for Brussels Mobility, the regional agency that launched the application five years ago, in collaboration with the municipalities. The platform now brings together many regional players such as the municipalities, Sibelga, Proximus, Vivaqua, Stib, Bruxelles Propreté and Bruxelles Mobilité, among others.

Specifically, each citizen can report an anomaly in the public space on the website or application. Just create an incident, describe it, indicate the exact location and attach a photo if possible. "Each application is badyzed, and the relevance and priority of each is to be determined, as each request does not automatically entail immediate intervention," explains Brussels Mobility.

The competent authorities will prioritize a dangerous pothole on a major road, while other "routine" interventions such as the replacement of bulbs for lighting or the refreshing of markings will take place in the context a more global campaign. About 30% of the complaints introduced in 2017 were closed in one month or less (5.34% are settled in one day).

The majority of reported incidents require more than a month to be closed for the simple reason that many interventions such as paving, marking or planting require medium-term planning, consolidation (major road marking campaign for example) and sometimes the expectation of correct weather conditions. "Sometimes the complaint can be solved via a major redevelopment project in the area," says Brussels Mobility.

Involving citizens in this way in reports (8138 users at the end of last year) allows you to have eyes everywhere and get almost real-time information on the state of roads and sidewalks. "The reports of the citizens in fact make it possible to reinforce the diagnostics of our controllers and technical services", explains Brussels Mobility which considers this citizen intervention as a real added value.

Still more incidents reported

Not surprisingly, the most reported incidents in 2017 were related to waste or public cleanliness. That year, they accounted for 41.58% of the problems found. Since the creation of the application, more than 131,000 incidents have been reported by citizens or professionals. In 2017, there were 26,286 or about 72 per day against twenty a day during the launch year of Fix My Street. At the end of the year, 90,610 incidents had been recorded since the beginning of the application. We are currently at 131,796. That's 41.186 since the end of last year.

At that time, road pavement problems were most frequently reported (65.09% in 2013 compared to 23.13 in 2017). Last year they came in second place, just before the reports related to street furniture.

Brussels-City comes in first place in the number of reports made over the last thirty days with 915 incidents on its territory (including Laeken, Haren and Neder-over-Heembeek). Follow Ixelles (225) and Etterbeek (223). Conversely, it is the commune of Koekelberg which is the least active at the level of the reports with 12 incidents listed. Then arrive Saint-Josse (29) and Evere (30), still on this last month.