Five years of defect reporting in Jena

The defect reporter in Jena is celebrating its 5th birthday - and is enjoying a great response.

Almost five years ago - at the meeting on March 15, 2017 - it was decided to implement the defect reporter before it went online on January 1, 2018. The aim was to simplify communication between Jena's citizens and the city administration and to create a platform through which damage or unauthorized waste disposal can be reported to the municipality easily, anonymously and via various channels. For example, the defect reporter can also be used via the MeinJena app.

The results are impressive: So far, 7,392 defects have been reported, of which 5,980 have been closed. The remaining defects arecurrently being processed. Thereare a total of 13 categories to choose from: Traffic lights, bodies of water, lampposts, litter, public transport, playground/sports facility, urban trees, urban greenery, urban forest/hiking trail, road/walking path/cycle path, street cleaning/winter service, street sign and other for issues that cannot be clearly assigned.

Depending on the complexity of thedefectand the personnel resources, the processing of a reported defect can take between one day and oneyear. It isalso important whether the decision-making authority lies at city or state level.

Defects that are regularly published and cause lively discussions concern the topics of bulky waste, construction site management, mobility, traffic light circuits, traffic monitoring, tree pruning/environmental protection, general waste disposal and street cleaning/winter road clearance.

The complaints platform is constantly being further developed to meet current technical requirements and a wide range of issues. For example, following a decision by the city council at the beginning of 2022, the category "Discriminatory advertising" was added,whichis the responsibility of the municipal equal opportunities officer Dr. Kerstin Haupt.

Inaddition , technical updates have been made over the past five years and other specialist areas have been integrated, so that the number of players has now grown to 98 - including team leaders and clerks.

The success of the defect reporter is also spreading beyond Jena's city limits: there have already been four inquiries from Thuringian municipalities regarding the implementation of the Jena defect reporter portal.