Impact
There is no actual impact measurement methodology in use except following the amount of user visits, search actions and index-words used. The feedback concerning the service itself has proved to be quite essential as the citizens note errors of the data and point them out: in this way the quality of data is under constant revision and correction in cooperation with the users.
By offering a KML interface Service Map promotes new policy of the city as the public data is openly available for everybody to utilize in their own applications. The amount of these applications show how the Service Map is succeeding in sharing public data and promoting new innovations.
Using map an GIS features fades out hierarchial and organizational boundaries of the governance: citizens don’t have to know which office is responsible for the issue at stake, nut the user can find information based on her/his needs using search features and for example location. As the basic data is GIS data, it enables many kinds of spatial analyses and utilization in various branches of governance. The city also needs fewer other web map services as it is possible to combine different contents to one map frame.
Service Map will guide the citizens to use eServices, for example a citizen can during one session access the information of a certain day care center and apply for a day-care place for his/hers child.
The open feedback forum offers the citizen a new way for interacting with the municipal officials. The challenge is to establish this kind of way of working within the city offices. The amount of feedback is also a way to measure the impact of the service: the more the feedback forum is used, the more the citizens gain direct contacts to the persons working in service points thus enhancing confidence in administration.
The main benefit is to present the city’s services on a common platform in a uniform way and the citizens get reliable information from services and additional information whenever they want. For example, along with the service point information, the citizen is offered information of how to go to the location by using public transportation.
The amount of searches is about 3000 – 4000 daily. This diminishes the burden in other channels like in the call centers and customer service. It is expected that within two years the Service Map will have 50 000 – 100 000 visitors monthly.
Track record of sharing
1) The Service Map utilizes standard GIS features, interfaces and functionalities. Using KML (Keyhole Markup Language) interface enables the trasfer the ser-vice points for example in Google Earth and Google Maps. The management and harmonizing mechanism of the actual Master Data File is going to be shared with neighboring cities (metropolitan area) too.
2) During the development and implementation process of Service Map the aim has been to share experiences and data with other actors (cities, ministries of the government, NGO’s, businesses, research projects). The Service Map is likely to extend to neighboring cities Vantaa and Espoo, which means that it will serve the whole metropolitan area (1,2 M people). The Service Map offers the tools for benefiting public data via KML interface in other applications provided by all sectors.
3) At the moment (June 2009) there is not yet evidence of exchange as the Service Map has been in public only six months.
Lessons learnt
Since the Service map has been in public only six months, the lessons learned focus on the development and implementation process. As many other public web services, the Service Map requires a lot of marketing – both internal (within the city’s offices) and external (the citizens, businesses, press) order to raise public awareness of the service. This task is still underway.
The dynamic data base model and the whole concept has proved to be flexible and scalable. This has made it easier to adjust the service to many kinds of needs.
The new model for maintaining service point data requires a lot of informing and training among the staff in the offices. Seminars and workshops need to be organized frequently. The browser-based maintenance system is, however, rather easy to use. The different needs of decision makers, executive officers and the “ordinary” employees must be taken into account when planning the training sessions and seminars.
Especially the new web 2.0 practices challenge municipals governments and the officials need time to adjust to these kind of new forums where the interaction between the citizen and the officials is in view. The challenge is to establish this kind of way of working within the city offices.
Also the usability test/research that was realized before launching the service proved to be useful.
The citizens expect more open government and seamless service chains. Based on the feedback from the users (concerning the service itself) and the growing amount of users (especially after launching the KML interface the amount of visits grew substantially) the Service Map is on the right track. The next challenge is to integrate the city’s eServices to service points in order to produce a seamless service chain from information to action (applications, payments etc.).
In the metropolitan area of Helsinki people live, work, travel and relax all over the area. It is clear that this kind of service needs to be expanded beyond one commune’s borders. This requires that the metropolitan communes consider their service task from the point of view of the whole region, not just their own administration.
It is evident, that in the near future the cities and communes need to focus more in producing quality data and offer effective and easy-to-use interfaces for data transfer and exchange: the need for launching separate “official” web services of its own will diminish as in the future many kinds of actors combine and present data on different kinds of web platforms. Need for integrating public services with other (private and third sector actors) services is also growing.
Project or service
