For a few years now, IVR specialists rode a wave of new deployments as local governments launched 311 numbers to provide access to non-emergency services. It was a defensive strategy by city governments to divert what are considered “nuisance calls” to the emergency 911 contact centers – which carry the colorful acronym of PSAP (Public Service Access Points). In rolling out 311 numbers, municipal governments discovered that citizens – in addition to the anticipated complaints/reports of potholes, blight, roadkill, noisy neighbors, etc. – sought access to information about general government services. 311 became the abbreviated numbering plan for e-government and a phone-based front-end to the local government’s knowledge base and IT departments.

As is so often true in the era of Recombinant Telephony, success leads to transformation and an acceleration of service definition technical specification. Taking New York City as an example, the “Open 311” initiative started taking shape with this open letter to Hizonner Michael Bloomberg, in late May. Today, courtesy of Twitter, we learned of the first draft of a specification for the Open311 service. The collaborators will take over now and it will accelerate extension of government services beyond IVR and phones to include Web services through what the author calls:

an open API for sending service requests or identifying issues that have a specific geographical component. For example, reporting a storm drain that is clogged or a streetlight that is out. Imagine if your smart-phone, your local blog, and websites like SeeClickFix could talk back and forth with local governments automatically.

…and to think that it all started with a three-digit abbreviated dialing code: 311.

Categories: Articles