Tackling street dirt in the municipality of Amsterdam

Tackling street dirt in Amsterdam

In 2016, the municipality of Amsterdam set aside an additional budget to combat the degradation caused by street dirt in the city. Due to complacent residents and the increase in tourists, there was increasing pressure on the Municipality's various garbage collection services. Not only is a polluted street scene bad for the city's image, it also attracts vandalism (graffiti) and pests. The budget available to address these problem areas had to be done in such an effective way. Identification of the nuisance (including adding) of household waste was an important aspect. Another important aspect was direct savings on staff deployment.

Adding waste (placing waste in places that are not intended for this purpose) is an increasing problem in the municipality of Amsterdam.

User-friendly observations app as a remedy

The solution consists of two parts; a user-friendly app where observations can be made in one screen. In addition, it is possible to add the type of observation, automatic GPS location, photos and an audio recording. Then, all observations arrive centrally on one clear screen, with each category of observation having its own color.

Dirt “hotspots” can be targeted with this observation app by focusing extra on these areas, identifying trends and recidivism.

Visual display of notifications & reports

In addition to a visual display (points on the map), this web application also allows management reports, clean-up planning, adding new processes and adding users, including assigning different user roles.

Results

The rapid identification of dirt nuisance in the city happens and, for example, adding waste originally took weeks to identify and address. This is because a lot of data had to be manually inserted into different systems.

Thanks to one complete system, the problems can now be identified and addressed within a few days and a much more effective use of staff, services and equipment has also been achieved.