Norway’s Unix User Group (NUUG) has updated FiksGataMi, a localised version of the FixMyStreet website. The new site is tailored for mobile computing devices, and there also is a custom app for Android devices.
Volunteer-run FiksGataMi covers all 428 Norway’s municipalities. The service is used by 67 of these, pointing their citizens to use it to report potholes, broken sidewalks and lamps, graffiti and other street problems.
NUUG, a Norwegian NGO focusing on open standards, free software and UNIX-like computer operating systems, launched the service in March 2011. Users only need to create reports, the web service will forward these to the correct public administration, the NUUG explained in an announcement on 30 December. “FiksGataMi sends e-mail to local authorities, depending on the geographical location and the category of the report.”
Four years ago, NUUG worked with mySociety - the UK-based developers of FixMyStreet - to enable the use of OpenStreetMap coordinates. “Once that was done, we quickly got our version up an running”, says NUUG chair Petter Reinholdtsen.
Sweep my street
Of all the 25,000 problems reported using FiksGataMi, 40 per cent has been resolved, reports NUUG. They explain that Norway’s public administrations have to respond to inquiries from citizens within 30 days. “Most of the reports concern potholes and broken streetlights, with 44 and 46 per cent fixed respectively”, the group writes. The most successful report is about street sweeping; 52 per cent of which is responded to.
FixMyStreet was launched in the UK in February 2007. The code is available under the GNU Affero GPL license and has been re-used by civil groups and European public administrations in Norway, France, Portugal, Ireland, Belgium, Sweden and the Netherlands.
More information:
FiksGataMi (in Norwegian)
NUUG press release (in Norwegian)
DIGI.NO news item (in Norwegian)
OSOR news item
OSOR news item
OSOR news item
OSOR study