South African smart city platform extends functionality

(Published by SmartCitiesWorld News Team in SmartCitiesWorld)

Tshwane is one of the cities where My Smart City has been rolled out

The My Smart City platform, which has been rolled out in cities across South Africa, now allows users to compare the performance of different municipal wards to help citizens make more informed choices when buying property

Developed and implemented by Acumen Software, the company reports the privately funded platform has been rolled out across Johannesburg, Cape Town, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni and eThekwini since its launch in 2020 and allows residents to log, track and monitor the resolution of reported service delivery issues.

Performance metrics

With the new In the City functionality, residents can view the performance metrics of different local municipalities across various categories such as state of the roads, power outages, water supply, waste management and general maintenance of their city.

“According to the latest Auditor General report, few South African municipalities and metros are being managed at a level that is confidence-building for citizens,” said Joao Zoio, CEO of Acumen Software.

“We developed My Smart City to give citizens a voice and to provide transparency on where the issues are”

“An important part of the solution is providing citizens with clear information and data on municipalities’ performance and where the faults lie. We developed My Smart City to give citizens a voice and to provide transparency on where the issues are. Now the My Smart City platform assists users in making value-based decisions like property investment.”

My Smart City creates essential statistical information from citizen input into the platform. The more users partake, the deeper and more accurate data output will be.

A city may have 100 logged service delivery issues with an average resolution time of 21 days. A second city could have the same amount of logged issues but with a resolution time of 50 days. It’s clear from this data that service delivery in the first city is superior to service delivery in the second. Citizens can even view maps to see exactly where service delivery issues were reported.

"With the local insights feature now available, citizens have transparency into the potential future performance of cities and neighbourhoods and if their property purchases are in jeopardy of declining over time. There is no other free platform that provides this level of detail and insight to citizens making important life decisions like investing in property,” said Kennedy Mogotsi, chief operating officer of Acumen Software.

Local schools and other recreational facilities like parks are equally important when determining property value. Users can pull information on the status of local parks and other neighbourhood amenities and browse restaurants, events and local attractions in their area. Furthermore, citizens can book live events from the platform, making it efficient when supporting local entertainment and community initiatives.

Acumen Software develops software solutions for a range of industries and has delivered projects at blue-chip organisations in South Africa, Africa, and other regions around the world. It is the developer, owner, and supplier of My Smart City citizen platform.