Residents can now follow the online progress of requests to the city
Officials with the City of Laval were recognized by their peers last week with an award recognizing efforts made by Laval to upgrade its systems for dealing with requests made by citizens. The Prix Excellence 2020 for municipalities with 50,000 or more residents was awarded by the Réseau de l’informatique municipale du Québec (RIMQ).
Innovation recognized
According to a press release from the city, the award recognized a significant program of changes Laval made to its inter-office systems in order to improve the priority of requests made by residents. The lessons learned from the project will now be shared with other municipalities across Quebec.
“We thank the RIMQ for this award,” said Laval city councillor for Laval-Les Îles Nicholas Borne, adding that the city’s management team managed to fundamentally alter its approach for dealing with citizen requests.
According to the city, the Citizen Requests project was launched four years ago with public consultations as well as marketing research. Apart from the involvement of Laval residents whose input was used, 700 municipal employees also took part, says the city.
Uses AI and algorhithms
With the new system, Laval residents now have a web portal with cloud support on which they can follow the progress of requests they make to the city. Artificial intelligence and algorhithms are also used to track and transcribe interactions between residents and employees. The city says the lessons learned from creating the new system will now be shared with other municipalities. As such, on Nov. 19 officials from the city will be taking part in a web conference sponsored by Microsoft and Gestisoft, who assisted the city with the project, where information and data from the project will be shared with other municipalities.
