Fluent Progress and mobile game startup Crowdsorsa have developed a new feedback and task management service which makes the maintenance of streets and roads faster and easier and takes citizens into account in a whole new way. The service will be piloted in Finland starting from spring 2023.
In the new citizen-engaging service, information is collected with Crowdsorsa mobile game where anyone can earn money by taking photos of their sightings – whether it be a hole in a road, snow-covered street sign or broken pavement. The feedback is updated to the game’s map in real time, which makes the collection of data very organized.
The application sends the crowdsourced photo data automatically to the municipality’s maintenance manager who makes the decision of required actions. When the feedback leads to a maintenance task, the player receives a notification and gets rewarded with real money.
– The concept has already proved to be useful for example in Oulu region where the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency has collected similar feedback on winter maintenance of cycling routes. Money and time are saved significantly in the process as maintenance workers don’t need to be sent for inspection anymore but tasks can be created based on the photos sent by the citizens, says Crowdsorsa CEO Toni Paju.
The new service also makes it possible to reduce the amount of feedback channels that are used in municipalities, and the feedback can be gathered collectively into a single platform.
– We want to bring a new innovation to the operating field with which we can increase the effectiveness of maintenance work as well as create transparency and improve the service for the citizens. Our solution turns the typically negative feedback experience into rewarding instead, for both the citizen and the maintenance manager, states Fluent CCO Mikko Hassinen.
Fluent and Crowdsorsa are searching for more municipalities to pilot their new road condition feedback service. In the future, more use cases such as infrastructure inventories, storm damage surveys and fault reporting of sports facilities and playgrounds can be included in the service.