Jakarta government releases an app that lets residents complain about public infrastructure

Jakarta’s central government published an app this week called Smart City in an effort to monitor, process, and follow up on public complaints throughout the capital, reports local media portal Indotelko.

“This application is a concept that embodies a new model of governance which involves citizens in shaping public policy,” said Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama at city hall on Monday. Purnama said that the system cost the government Rp 3.5 billion (US$277,892) to implement. According to him, the app and website are also used to monitor the performance of district leaders, who are responsible for addressing complaints from residents.

The app has two distinct features. The first is a rapid response poll of public opinion, which enables government officials to collect responses from social media to learn which areas and issues are the biggest infrastructural pain points for residents. The second is a community report that is accessible to everyone, where residents can also see the transparent complaint data.

The community report includes categories like traffic jams, crime, fires, sanitation issues, and natural disasters. There’s a special section for flooding that features data on the city’s watershed network, pump locations, and levies. The app combines the Google Maps API with a custom crowdsourcing app called Qlue to generate visual reports.

See: This site lets you know when Jakarta’s streets turn to rivers

According to local media, Smart City is integrated with social media applications such as community-based traffic reporting app Waze and Twitter, one of Jakarta’s prefered social networks. The app also accesses 300 CCTV cameras that already exist around the city.

Smart City encompasses data related to fiber optic lines, building locations, police outposts, population data, and more. The app can provide information on the value of property taxes to the city planning in the future. With several digital channels feeding the Smart City app complaints, in theory, government officials can better plot a course of action for improved infrastructure.

“With this program, the city officials and civil servants can see complaints real-time. The civil servants nearest to the place of complaints and reports must quickly visit the site to respond. I do not want any [excuses],” said Jakarta governor Ahok in front of hundreds of agency and district heads during the launch.

Editing by Paul Bischoff and Josh Horwitz; lead image from Charles-Wiriawan