311 in the News

The use of a 311 phone number to assist municipal governments to serve their citizens is not new, and agencies are now able to use the data collected to start tracking trends. As Chicago's Mayor Daley hands off to Rahm Emanuel, some are saying his greatest legacy is the 311 system he put in place. Knoxville, Tennessee's call system had a record 6,400 calls in one week during May. These are just a few of the news stories recently coming across the wire concerning 311 systems across the nation.

Chicago residences are witnessing a change of Mayor in May and many are saying that outgoing Mayor Daley's most important legacy will be the city's 311 system he instituted. In fact some see Daley as the “father of 311.”

The phone number 311 transformed how Chicagoans interact with their city government and set a president for many other US cities. Daley created Chicago’s 311 system in 1999 as a front desk and storehouse for city services, contact personnel, complaints, and citizens' service requests. The system tracks work orders resulting from the complaints. The system has improved the efficiency and productivity of city work crews.

Chicago’s 311 system's greatest success to date was literally leading the way in the halting of the West Nile disease. Monitors noticed a dramatic uptick in dead birds being reported through 311. The city mapped the 311 dead bird complaints and sprayed insecticides, removed standing water – a potential epidemic was addressed quickly and efficiently. This week, the city of Knoxville's 311 call center received a record of 6,400 calls. The call center was started in 2005 as a tool for residents to retrieve information about city services. The major factors contributing to the record week were people signing up for the city's curbside recycling program and people reporting storm damage. In the past, these two major events would have cost the city large sums of money, yet with the 311 center already in place, it cost a few hours of coding to create the forms to speedily collect this information.

The potential cost savings of these types of services can be significant, even for small to medium sized municipalities. And with the rise in mobile device usage, we can only expect this number to grow.