City’s 311 complaint line catching on, except with cell phones usersA new complaint line for Pittsburgh residents drew nearly 1,000 calls in its first week of operation, despite the fact that many with cell phones can’t yet call its 311 number.
Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said his complaint line’s Oct. 23 launch led to a big jump in resident calls to city government, and the numbers should rise as the city deploys billboards and bus shelter ads touting it.
“I think you’ll see that as the residents of the city become more aware of it, the call volume will increase,” he said yesterday.
Pioneered in other cities, a 311 line makes it easy to report problems and pose questions, like a 911 system does for emergencies.
The 942 calls to the 311 line last week included 394 requests for city services, mostly related to overgrown lots or abandoned property, mayoral spokesman Dick Skrinjar said. The rest were requests for information.
The mayor said the progress of complaints through the bureaucracy will be tracked.
“It ensures accountability,” he said.
He said the city will collect data on complaints that will allow it to identify trends and larger problems in neighborhoods.
That’s a big step up from the past, when, he said, “a call would come in, and perhaps it was logged on a piece of paper, and that could get lost in with other pieces of paper, and the complaint not addressed.”
The majority of the service requests were relayed by the three 311 operators to the Department of Public Works or the Bureau of Building Inspection. Each has a reference number attached to it, so the city can track how the complaint is handled.
Verizon Wireless and Cingular Wireless customers cannot use the three-digit number yet. If they try, they get a message indicating that the call cannot be completed as dialed.
City Information Systems Director Howard Stern said that will be fixed by year’s end. Last week, the city sent the necessary contract to Verizon, he said.
The city also agreed, reluctantly, to Cingular’s demand for a one-time $1,500 set-up payment. No other cell phone company charged a fee, he said.
Cingular technical sales support manager Michael Flanagan said the fee covers the data entry needed to route 311 calls placed within the city to the right place.
For now, Cingular and Verizon customers can dial 412-255-2621 to get a 311 operator.
Source- http://www.post-gazette.com
