Although often associated with the reporting of potholes and fly-tipping, did you know that FixMyStreet Pro can also improve the way authorities handle reports of problems found on public rights of way?
With over 14,000 miles of public rights of way in England and Wales, managed by a combined network of local councils, highways authorities and private landowners, it would be unreasonable to expect members of the public to always know who can respond to the problem they have found, be it a broken stile, overgrown hedgerow or wonky signpost.
As the only reporting solution capable of automatically triaging reports between different authorities (not to mention triaging between different internal departments within those authorities), FixMyStreet Pro makes it easy to successfully report and respond to problems on public rights of way.
Categories
Authorities using FixMyStreet Pro can set up as many or as few categories as required, comprising different service areas. As an example, if you’re a FixMyStreet Pro client and you originally set up the service for the reporting highways issues, but you would also like to incorporate public rights of way, you can do so!
Categories can be set to reflect whatever issues you can deal with, while subcategories help report-makers to narrow down the problem they want to report.
Reports within different categories and subcategories can be triaged either to different email addresses or sent directly into CRM systems through API integration.
Asset layers
API integration can also be established between FixMyStreet Pro and asset management systems. This enables authorities to display asset layers on the reporting map to visually show to report-makers which public rights of way are their responsibility.
For users making reports when they are not currently at the location of the problem, asset layers can be particularly useful in improving the accuracy of the map pin’s positioning.
If available from the integrated system, individual assets, such as bridges, can be displayed on the map to help report-makers accurately select where the problem is.
Where a user attempts to report a problem that is the responsibility of another authority (e.g. National Highways or a neighbouring council), asset layers can be used to automatically divert reports. This is really useful in urban areas where public rights of way commonly overlap with roads and cross boundaries managed by other authorities.
If no such layer is available, FixMyStreet Pro can triage the report to the correct authority via the national FixMyStreet site.
Where the problem is on private land, or is managed by another public body, it’s possible to display a message to alert the report-maker of this and to signpost to the correct place if known.
Extra questions
Additional questions can be added to FixMyStreet Pro’s reporting form to enable report-makers to self-serve all necessary information and prompt an appropriate and efficient response from the recipient authority.
Questions can be displayed at different points within the reporting workflow, according to the category and/or subcategory selected.
Offline reporting
Because FixMyStreet Pro is a progressive web app, it permits offline capability to authorities’ individual Pro sites.
This means members of the public can start reports on-the-go without internet connection, and finish them later when back online.
With many public rights of way traversing more rural areas where connectivity is poor, this functionality is essential in helping keep reports accurate and accessible to all.
Preventing duplication
With all reports displayed publicly on the map, FixMyStreet Pro helps users to see which problems have already been reported, and if any updates have been left on the report.
If a user attempts to report a problem in the same location and category of an existing report, FixMyStreet Pro will suggest that report to the user and, if it is the same problem, ask them to subscribe to the existing report instead of reporting again.
This saves time for the report-maker and helps authorities save money by reducing the costs associated with duplication of effort and manual intervention.
The radius within which duplicate reports are suggested to users can be modified per category. This is particularly useful for some public rights of way issues, such as overgrown vegetation, for which you may want to set a wider radius to compensate for the possibility of map pins being placed at multiple different points for the same issue.
___
For more information about including public rights of way categories on FixMyStreet Pro, or to discuss any other functionality, get in touch.
___
Image taken by a member of the mySociety/SocietyWorks team and used with permission.