Previously, a team at National Chengchi University in Taipei held a competition that still confuses me, a creative selection competition for Taipei City”s governance and construction. In short, submission is always the easiest, so I wrote and thought as I sent a proposal for governance suggestions to the team to participate in the competition. Later, I received a letter requesting more detailed implementation content. I always felt that feasibility and creativity were the most important, but the academic unit organizing the event preferred to spend resources on hypothetical proposals, which I found troublesome, so I didn”t bother with it anymore.
First, the conclusion: the plan submitted at that time was an improvement plan for cooperation channels between citizens and the government.
🚦 Efficiency Problems of Existing Petition Channels
Currently, besides the early established email or paper mail complaint and inquiry methods, the only remaining avenues for communication between the government”s ears and the people”s mouths are probably the so-called seeking legislators and councilors for relief. In recent years, Taipei City took the lead in promoting the convenient service hotline: 1999, which further strengthened the cooperative relationship between the government and the people.
However, the three aforementioned solutions all share several common drawbacks, including lack of openness, lack of supervision, and lack of verification.
Imagine, when there is a pothole on a road, and 10 people simultaneously send letters or call 1999 to report it, it requires 10 person-times of labor to receive emails or answer calls, process them into separate cases, then merge them into one incident, and hand it over to the construction unit to schedule maintenance. Then these 10 people anxiously wait for the construction unit to process and report back, and may even never know if it was repaired, only remembering it the next time they pass the same section of road (or even fall there again). If the reporter used mail, the construction or management unit would also need to reply with official documents.
See, what an inefficient administrative process this is.
📱 Solution: All Citizens Report APPs
So I thought that existing technology could be put to practical use, specifically by utilizing smartphone APPs technology to improve this collaborative process. At the time of submission, I casually came up with a name: 全民報馬仔 (All Citizens Report).
As the name suggests, the purpose of this APP is to allow citizens to log information on their smartphones for “specific locations” and/or “specific incidents.” Afterward, the government needs to process and report on the content logged by the citizens. At the same time, all processes from information logging to result reporting are public and transparent, allowing all citizens to inquire.
For example, suppose a road collapse accident occurs in Alley 97, Taiyuan Road, Taipei City. At this time, citizens can quickly connect to the All Citizens Report APP on their phones, log the location as “Alley 97, Taiyuan Road” and the incident as “road collapse.” Then:
- System automatically issues cases: The government”s system can automatically issue cases based on the crisis value of the incident (assuming from 0 to 10, road collapse is 7), requesting the city”s public works department to prioritize dispatching maintenance vehicles.
- Automatic notification: And automatically notify the nearest police station to dispatch personnel to the scene for control.
- Avoid duplication: The best part is, if twenty passersby, or even residents on the fifth floor of a house at the collapsed site, all report the danger through the All Citizens Report APP simultaneously, the system will analyze and process the location and incident, concluding that one incident occurred at one location, greatly reducing false alarms and wasted administrative resources.
🔍 Information Disclosure and Supervision Mechanism
In addition, public and historical data access must also be provided, allowing citizens to supervise administrative efficiency and maintenance results. As I mentioned earlier, if 20 passersby plus one sheep report simultaneously, should there be 20 replies and call-backs? So, it”s better to let the reporter themselves confirm whether their submitted content has been resolved, and even the resolution deadline. At the same time, a rating system should be introduced. Under inducement, citizens will be more willing to constantly check their surroundings for areas needing government improvement. Afterward, this approach will only lead to one consequence: the government will passively have to improve efficiency and pragmatism.
🛡️ Solving Abuse Problems
Currently, the biggest drawback of this All Citizens Report APP is its “abuse” by the public, causing the entire system to collapse in terms of meaning. However, this can also be easily solved by applying two modules: identity verification and credit value-added. The key is to make reporters respect the content they report. Even if the public still reports falsely, the system”s collapse threshold can quickly return to a constant, and negative factors can be eliminated through time verification, which relatively increases the system”s permanent stability.
Further Reading:
- [1] The reason for the confusion is that the competition content was rambling, constantly expanding to other extended items, making the underlying content quite complex.
- [2] The government system can automatically determine whether it needs to notify the police to arrive first for control based on the crisis value (assuming anything above 3 requires it). Of course, the processing timeliness can also be defined based on the crisis value. Although not all incidents require immediate handling, it will relatively define the maximum processing time for dangerous incidents, allowing public works units to decide manpower usage independently.