Mobile Alert: cloud-based citizen crowdsourcing

Mobile Alert overview

Mobile Alert is a cloud-based service that empowers mobile users to provide crowdsourced location information to subscribing organizations such as local governments or utilities.

Anyone can download the Mobile Alert app for free to send information about their communities to authorities. Local government agencies and utility companies subscribe to receive the crowdsourced information by email or through the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) web service.

Is it easy to use?

Hexagon’s Safety, Infrastructure & Geospatial division provides a total cloud-hosted solution that requires no IT knowledge to get started. We provide the hosting environment, processing logic, and downloadable application. Citizens simply download the free app and start reporting. This intuitive application makes it easy to:

• Take a photo of an area needing attention
• Choose an appropriate category
• Write an optional comment
• Enter location (if GPS accuracy is poor, Bing Maps can be used to pinpoint location)
• Optionally, provide contact information for authorities to follow up

Who is Mobile Alert for?

Engaging citizens to provide information helps resource-thin public works agencies by providing them with a reliable, cost-effective source of actionable information. While cities benefit from crowdsourcing to help catalog incidents, citizens gain an open line of communication to authorities and can actively contribute to the health of their community. Citizens are great data collectors, since their GPS-enabled smartphone can accurately generate a reference location within 5-10 meters.

Smart Cities demand open innovation and e-participation with citizens. Mobile Alert application and its companion Mobile Alert Smart M.Apps empower governmental leaders to utilize cloud technology across the entire process, from data gathering to communicating analysis for smart, efficient management decisions. Governments improve the collective intelligence of the city’s institutions, improve transparency across departments, and demonstrate commitment to citizen participation and co-design.

Typical customers include:

Low, mid or high-density city; populations from thousands to millions

• Mayors or City council department manager responsible for monitoring the work of third-party companies (e.g. street pavement cleanup, garbage collection)
• Public Services delivery manager seeking an instant notification system for issues that emerge within an operational area (e.g. water leaks, new potholes)
• Municipal police investigating areas in need of non-critical intervention (e.g. illegal parking)

Organizations on local, regional, or national level collecting information on environmental concerns, infrastructure issues, etc.

• Environmental Protection Agencies collecting information about wildlife habitats of rare species
• Department of Agriculture collecting information about toxic or invasive plant species
• Railway station management office collecting information on issues discovered by staff and passengers
• Departments of Transportation that want to use crowdsourcing to report on road conditions in the region or country

Mobile Alert capabilities