What a year it’s been for FixMyStreet Pro, now the official street reporting system for 21 authorities across the country.

Growth…

During 2019 we’ve welcomed Bexley, Cheshire East, Hackney, Northamptonshire, Hounslow Highways, Westminster, Island Roads (Isle of Wight), Peterborough, and now Transport for London to the list of Pro clients.

In all, that adds up to 6.5 million residents who can now report problems such as potholes, faulty street lights or vandalism, either on FixMyStreet.com or on their councils’ own websites.

And if you consider that TfL covers all of Greater London, a further 7.5 million residents and countless commuters, tourists and visitors to the city are also covered for reporting on overground and underground stations, red routes, bus stops, etc.

In all cases, reports pass directly into the authorities’ internal systems, making for swift resolution and the ability to keep the report-maker informed of progress at every step.

…and improvement 

It hasn’t been all about expansion, though. This year, we’ve also been adding further features for councils to the FixMyStreet Pro offering. It’s worth noting, perhaps, that improvements for councils always translate into improvements for residents too, either in terms of quicker report processing, better status updates, or public money saved — and often all three.

Here’s a rundown of the new features we’ve introduced this year:

• Councils can add assets like street lights and trees to the map so reports are made in precisely the right location.
• If you’re trying to report a problem that’s already been logged, you’ll be alerted and can sign up to get updates on the original.
• Our new dashboard heatmaps show council staff at a glance where problems are.
• We made changes to the way councils can manage categories, easily adding context-specific guidance for the report maker…
• … and also made it so that a subcategory can belong to more than one parent.
• Managers can now assign roles to team members much more easily, too.

Getting out and about

We attended Highways UK in Brum and the LGA conference in Bournemouth — it was good to meet so many of our clients and those considering whether FixMyStreet Pro might be a good fit for their needs.

And we were delighted to meet up with residents in Westminster and let them put the FixMyStreet to test while we watched and learned.

Looking forward to 2020

We’ve already been carrying out some research with client authorities, and we’ll be continuing this work into the new year. We also have some development planned.

• Conducting user testing to see how people use the input forms, what might be confusing and how this can be addressed…
• …and further user testing to observe how people use FixMyStreet on mobile devices.
• We’ll be talking to District Councils to see how their needs differ from other authorities, and how we can meet those needs.
• Meanwhile we’ll be giving the FixMyStreet app a much-needed update.
• We’ll make it easier for staff to add the email address of someone who requests updates on an existing report.
• And lots more!

We’re really looking forward to getting our teeth into these features and then rolling them out to our client councils in 2020.

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Image: Nadine Shaabana