Putting problems on the mapUsing mapping software to empower consumers Julianna Smith

Consumer Focus

About Consumer Focus

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We operate across the whole of the economy, persuading businesses, public services and policy-makers to put consumers at the heart of what they do.

Consumer Focus tackles the issues that matter to consumers, and aims to give people a stronger voice. We don’t just draw attention to problems – we work with consumers and with a range of organisations to champion creative solutions that make a difference to consumers’ lives.

Following the Government’s consumer advocacy reforms, we will continue to act in the consumer interest across a wide range of sectors until our general advocacy role passes to the Citizens Advice service in April 2013.

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Photo creditsCover image: FixMyStreet.com

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Contents

Putting problems on the map

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Background to the technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Benefits that crowdmapping can offer bodies working in a consumer context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Issues for consideration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Mapping in action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Future and wider uses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

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As soon as news broke about the Haitian earthquake in 2010, Patrick Meier and his team of tech volunteers set out to establish how their expertise in crisis mapping could best be put to use. From the basement of Tufts University, they co-ordinated the creation of a powerful mapping tool that could help victims and humanitarian workers communicate effectively in a time of scarce resources.1 Haitians affected by the earthquake used the tool to alert the team to their situation, needs and location. The team monitored and mapped incoming information, which in turn enabled rescue and humanitarian teams to co-ordinate and target responses.2 Altogether, an estimated 40,000-60,000 reports were processed.3 Such a feat not only enabled disaster relief to be much more effective, but also for many individuals, whose voices which may have been lost otherwise, to be heard.4

An open source web platform called Ushahidi was used as the foundation for the Haiti mapping project. It is free and allows anyone to gather distributed data from the crowd via SMS, email or the web and visualise it on a map. Having been produced in response to the 2008 post-election violence in Kenya, it creates a simple way of aggregating information from the public for use in crisis response. The approach this technology is designed for is known as crowdsourcing. It involves getting input from individuals or communities who will perform tasks that previously would have been carried out by employees or other experts. For this reason crowdsourcing is used to collect and provide the raw data that is collated and presented through the web maps – hence the term ‘crowdmapping’.

1 http://bit.ly/Od2LuU2 http://onforb.es/TYH7aM3 http://bit.ly/NOevnN4 http://vimeo.com/9279815

As Clay Shirky states, this process takes the tacit information available to individual members of the public and aggregates it and maps it and makes it public.5

In the previous example from Haiti, the base map, their translations and geo locations were all crowd-sourced from the efforts of recruited volunteers and the reports were crowdsourced from the Haitians directly affected by the disaster.

The Haiti map is just one of the many examples of how web map creators have leveraged the power of large groups of people to gather intelligence. As this approach grows in popularity, people have found ways to apply it to an array of situations – and not exclusively in crises. This paper highlights the potential for these tools to be adopted in a consumer empowerment context. A brief introduction to the topic is provided for those who are less familiar with the technology involved. This is followed by an in-depth account of the reasons behind our interest in this approach as well as an analysis of four existing examples. The final section looks at opportunities that now exist for bodies working in a consumer context to harness these tools in the course of their work.

5 http://bit.ly/QcqT1o

Introduction

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Background to the technology

Web mapping features have become an important part of many websites and applications and most people will now have encountered a mapping service or application while browsing the internet. As interest in the potential of web mapping has grown, developers have significantly built on and expanded the parameters of underlying technologies,6 adding new analytic and collaborative capabilities. As a result, the use of crowd-sourced maps is no longer limited to tech-savvy specialists and professionals.7 As web mapping goes mobile with the growing take up of smart phones and other portable computing devices, the use and utility of applications built on these technologies is set to grow further.

These maps can now be applied to a wide range of scenarios and with these advances comes a variety of methods to help people create their own mapping tools, as well as the opportunity to learn from what did and did not work in previous projects. There are now a range of solutions that help organisations and individuals create and publish their own maps, ranging from off-the-shelf to highly bespoke software. Examples of different web mapping platforms include Bing maps for Enterprise (a Microsoft technology) and Esri’s ArcGIS Online, to open source platforms like Ushahidi. Some offer free tools, such as Ushahidi’s ‘Crowdmap’ – specifically designed to plot crowd-sourced data.

6 ‘Data mash-ups and the future of mapping’. Provides a more in-depth introduction to the changes in this field http://bit.ly/PLhfhx.

7 http://bit.ly/OZmBqE this has been linked to the wider ‘mass amateurisation’ trend concurrent with Web 2.0 combined with the recent, greatly improved availability of GPS receivers

Crowdmap is particularly useful as it is hosted by Ushahidi themselves, so involves no downloads or installation and provides a template from which users can build and deploy their own maps in a matter of minutes, with next to no technical knowledge.

Alternatively, web maps can be fashioned independently from a base map (such as Google Maps) combined with layers of data displayed on the map with points, lines, areas or symbols. Websites like Google Maps expose an Application Programming Interface (API) that allows users to create custom applications around them.8 They can then be used as the basis for an interactive web map for the public to interact with and update (the Bristolstreets map9 featured in the ‘Mapping in action’ section is a good example of how this technique is applied). Although this method can be more laborious for the map creators than using an out-of-the box product, in some cases the map can be better tailored to complement the specific information members of the public will post.

The choice in development opportunities is made evident by the varied assortment of websites showing businesses, governments, organisations and individuals worldwide employing crowd-sourced maps as a means of communication and collaboration between them and their consumers, citizens and peers. The next section examines the benefits of this approach for both consumers and the organisations that work on their behalf.

8 http://bit.ly/Qe2IKa9 http://bit.ly/TqPvSW

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Benefits that crowdmapping can offer bodies working in a consumer context

Mapping technologies can be used to generate near-real-time, on the ground intelligence, reveal trends within and across policy areas, increase transparency, target interventions, facilitate collaboration between consumers and the agencies working in their interest, and point to where further research or investigation is required. They can empower consumers to bring transparency and visibility to an issue and promote greater scrutiny of service providers and policy impacts. Users can see their reports appear alongside those of their fellow consumers and citizens in the public domain. In some instances, such as the Hackney Citizen Advice Bureau map examined in the next section, people are also able to interact with their peers who are using the service and with interested stakeholders on shared experiences and possible responses. The availability of the mapping tools allows people to log their opinion or problem and (literally) see whether it is a common one. This can highlight any systemic issues and increase the scrutiny of a service provider’s performance (and on regulators and elected representatives who should have been holding the performance to account), building the pressure on them to do something about it.

This approach deserves further exploration not solely because of its growing popularity and recent trends, but because it offers a very powerful way of spotting trends and hearing first hand from large numbers of consumers, in real time. It is not just about data for data’s sake; with this technology the following aspects of consumer empowerment, advocacy and protection can be improved:

● Co-ordination between organisations – this is a great way to share data and provide the opportunity for ‘mashups’ with other data sets to explore trends in multiple policy areas. One way of doing this is by creating ‘layers’ for a map. This is usually in the form of a downloadable file containing a table or list of the information plotted on the map and its location. Once all the information has been collected and downloaded, these files can then be reused as an overlay or base layer on other maps to examine correlations. Maptube is a tool specifically designed for this purpose. The website, created by UCL’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, allows users to browse maps, add their own data sets and combine data on population, education, health, crime transport, politics, economics and land. Using cross-sector data sets, the mashups can be applied to better understand where detriment arises and how it is experienced. A more accurate picture can be constructed and used for practical purposes of policy implementation. As a visibility tool it can draw attention to problems and successes that could also lead product and service providers to better regulate their own behaviour. This is especially promising in markets that are slow to respond to the needs of consumers. The U.S. Department of Education’s collaborative broadband availability map, for example, helps understand and ultimately improve the use of broadband and information technology in schools by highlighting any existing inequalities. Four primary data sources were used to build the tool set for this map. In the UK Data.gov.uk supplies data from central government departments, a number of other public sector bodies and local authorities that can be mapped.

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● The website showcases apps made by developers using this method of fusing datasets, including the Vehicle Crime and Road Accident map,10 which combines two datasets to help users to access road safety in their area

● Collaboration, co-ordination and communication between consumer organisations and consumers, as consumers themselves provide real-time intelligence on their local situations, benefiting both parties. The transparency and immediacy of this manner of reporting means it lends itself well toward being a springboard for further dialogue, research or policy evaluation11

● Co-ordination among consumers. Through the discovery of similar experiences, points of interest, or problems, consumers can then collaborate and co-ordinate within peer networks in ways that increase the pressure on business or agencies to resolve problems; or to amplify their voices and/or generate profile for an issue in ways that ensure their perspectives are heard

10 http://bit.ly/OWNQ3k11 A good example is of the BBC’s UK 3G broadband crowd-

sourced map showing that availability was lower than suppliers had suggested (http://bbc.in/TYHpi6)

For organisations looking to use a crowd-sourced map to research problems or to gather intelligence on an issue, this approach may not always provide bullet proof evidence, nor always offer a substitute for rigorous research. But what it does provide is an early warning system and indicators that can complement and bolster wider approaches.

For instance, as the eyes and ears on the ground, consumers could provide a very quick picture of the service failure, product problems and scams that consumers are being subjected to; as well as public sentiment towards an arising issue.

The basic nature of a problem could be understood, including its origins and its projected development. It would become immediately visible whether a trend is localised, or whether it extends to encompass wider areas. By combining this with multiple data sets and analytics, powerful tools can be created on which to base further research.

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Issues for consideration

Despite its immense potential, it is important to acknowledge that the widespread adoption of mapping technologies does pose some potential drawbacks – namely the need for people among the target constituency for whom the map is created to have access to and the confidence to use the internet, or at least access to an intermediary who can access the internet on their behalf.

Ushahidi has developed a successful workaround by creating the option for map creators to connect their Crowdmap to a system that enables voicemail, texts and tweets to be plotted.12

Nonetheless there remain people who will not be able to access and contribute to mapping services, even where they are available through ‘phone interfaces’. It is important therefore, at the start of a mapping project, to understand who constitutes the target audience and how members of the audience who do not have direct access to the relevant technologies can still be heard.

Engaging with intermediary organisations and representatives, such as face-to-face advice providers and support who can offer offline consumers access to a mapping service, or even make a report on their behalf can help ensure that the service is inclusive as possible.

12 http://bit.ly/PLhvx9 and http://bit.ly/Q1ZJZj

Consumers using the tool may also be concerned about privacy and data protection issues. But crowdmapping does not need to be data intensive or a personal data grab. In the following examples, personal data is mostly optional and if supplied, is mainly required for report verification purposes.

In fact requiring lots and lots of data is not a recipe for success – it will become too burdensome for people to engage. By keeping the user experience forefront during the design stages; this type of issue can easily be mitigated.

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Mapping in action

This section highlights a number of ways in which crowdmapping tools have already been harnessed by a range of different agencies to gather intelligence on the consumer experience, to expose problems as well as bring these to the attention of those responsible – either for their cause, or for taking steps to address them. Some of the examples also show how mapping technologies can help users take collaborative action and connect with others for support.

The positive effects of the hub of activity and development outlined below help demonstrate why there is clear scope for organisations working with, or on behalf of, consumers to deploy this technology in ways that will engage and empower consumers.

Example 1 Power cuts in India

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The team behind the service are combining this data with news reports about lost productivity, as well as information about potential ways to use cleaner alternative energy sources. Policy makers and energy companies can also draw on the intelligence the service gathers to think about how to address India’s growing need for power.

It is therefore an invaluable tool for bringing transparency to and scrutiny of the problems with India’s power infrastructure, and a way for consumers to build support and become more vocal and proactive participants in driving the discussion.

Consumers are voluntarily creating web maps too. Power Cuts in India came about after a group of Twitter users complaining about the problem of power outages in India started a discussion with the hashtag #powercutindia. They asked participants in the conversation to state the location of a power cut and when it occurred. Given the high response rate, they created a web page that mapped the data that people had provided in Tweets.

The resulting ‘Power Cuts in India’ map is another of the many relevant examples using Ushahidi software. It is helping to develop a better understanding of electricity demand and highlighting where there is a need for investment in power production and distribution. It aims to collect information on the issue of power shortages in India in order to bring more attention to the problem and provide more information on it (especially in more rural areas which, its creators claim, were previously neglected in public discussions).

Consumers and bodies working on their behalf can use the data to hold their power supplier to account and to compel the responsible authorities to act. Consumers can also compare local performance with other areas to determine how representative their experience is.

Features ● Extensive list of ways to make a report (see left

column) mean it is suitable for a diverse target audience (especially if they are reporting during a power cut)

● The category filter provides a clear way to distinguish between the types of reports made

● Clustering keeps the map neat and allows easy visualisation of high number of reports

● The timeline can be played to show how the reports change over time (as well as a graph underneath showing total number of reports submitted over time so this can be taken into account as well)

● Links to similar projects and other aspects of the project, such as the blog and BBC video on the project

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Example 2 Bristolstreets

Features ● The map was featured on an existing, well-

used website with extensive maps of Bristol – Bristolstreets

● The instructions encouraged residents to leave a marker on the map in a friendly manner and in a way which requires minimum effort on their behalf.

● The full screen map makes it really easy for users to navigate around the map

● The interface is kept very simple and uncluttered

● Detailed instructions on the left hand side are also readily available for less confident users

Councils have begun using crowd-sourced web maps to collect data from the public on local issues. For example, Bristol City Council incorporated a public, crowd-sourced map in the first phase of consultations during their Bristol Central Area Action plan for local development.

People could identify issues and places in the central area that they cherished as well as ones they wished to change. It collected over 920 comments that the council subsequently analysed and used to feed into the following consultation stages.13

13 http://bit.ly/PLhfhx

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Example 3 Hackney CAB Crowdmap

Features ● The map is embedded into the Hackney

CAB website, ensuring the Crowdmap is well explained and offered alongside other relevant services

● This also makes it easier for users to access it, as they do not have to follow a link to an external site

The Hackney Citizens Advice Bureau designed a Crowdmap to track how the changes in legislation to Housing Benefit levels are affecting recipients who rent in the private sector in Hackney. The Hackney CAB predicted it would be difficult for people to pay rent once reductions to payment levels kicked in, with their estimated figures suggesting 7,000 out of the 83,000 households could be affected.

The Bureau is using the mapping tool to collect individual stories and bring together residents affected by the changes in an online space so it can offer further support. This map incorporates many of the goals mentioned earlier, including: monitoring and researching the impact of a policy change, following resultant trends and exposing issues that arise.

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Example 4 FixMyStreet

Features ● The home page clearly outlines the steps

required to make a report

● This site requires users to sign up and login in order to report a problem

● Because users can create an account and log in, a record can be kept of their activity on the site and the response it has received. It also means cases can be closed by the reporter once they are resolved. As this screenshot shows, four of the problems have been fixed (see list on left)

● Apps have also been created to help users to submit reports via mobile phones

● The ‘All reports’ tab includes a published list of all the reports in all the councils, allowing users to compare council performance.

Other citizen and consumer interest organisations are making use of similar technologies. Examples include FixMyStreet and FixMyTransport created by mySociety, to generate a simple, transparent mechanism whereby citizens can make complaints about local issues such as graffiti, rubbish collection and problems with public transport.

These complaints are then conveyed to relevant council departments and transport operators. Response rates and performance of the bodies in question are then measured and reported back in real time. These function predominantly as problem reporting and response tracking maps.

They also support greater transparency and scrutiny of provider performance and responsiveness, enabling citizens and passengers to hold them to account. In a number of instances, these services offer a much more convenient and accessible route to reporting problems than the providers own customer services departments.

FixMyStreet is now the most widely-used street issue web application in the UK, sending over 5,000 reports to local authorities each month.14 mySociety has also created FixMyStreet for Councils, which is designed to be integrated with their existing reporting and CRM systems.

14 http://bit.ly/OWOmyg

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Mapping technologies need not be limited to complaints services, as the Bristolstreets example above shows; given their flexible nature, the sky really is the limit. They can just as easily be used to capture and map positive data – for example, to log the location of useful services or facilities, recommendations or interesting experiences and direct their peers towards these.

Consumer Focus initially saw crowdmapping as most appropriate for supporting projects in which it needed more information and/or to gain an early warning and track the emergence of problems consumers were experiencing. Nonetheless, it could be used as a way for customers and communities to indicate and even register interest in goods and services, as well as levels of support for proposals relating to local services. It could be used to test the appetite for and then support the co-ordination of local group buying initiatives and, depending on the issue at hand, enable the mapping of new service roll-outs and the co-ordination of community events during projects such as Big Energy Week. Consumer Focus will be looking at the potential of harnessing these technologies to track the Smart Meter roll-out and Green Deal implementation.

There are also ways to expand the scope of a mapping tool. For example, as well as having a website, a project may include a mobile device-compatible version, or, depending on the nature of the information being gathered, the possibility of using geo-tagging15 or QR codes16 eg

15 http://talkaboutlocal.org.uk/ar/ This website explains how content can be geo-tagged and incorporated in an augmented reality environment, via Layar

16 QR codes are square bar codes that are scanned with smart phones and used as a quick link to further information

Future and wider uses

Both could be an effective way to increase access to the mapping tool and promoting users to make reports at the location (with the option of adding media such as photos and videos to reports) rather than relying on consumers to be at home or on a computer. 2011 Ofcom research shows that 91 per cent of adults in the UK personally own/use a mobile phone (22.6 per cent of which use smart phones17) and 34 per cent of them use their handset to access the internet.18 What’s more, the numbers using smart phones or other mobile devices to access the internet is growing fast. So although current usage it is far from universal, ‘the trend is moving in only one direction, with smartphone adoption increasing by 70 per cent in the UK over the past year’.19

17 http://bit.ly/KekWMf18 http://bit.ly/Ks5QPe19 http://bit.ly/KekWMf

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Conclusion

This paper highlights the opportunities that mapping technologies offer bodies working in the consumer interest. Interactive mapping can support effective collaboration with consumers and enable better engagement with the people on whose behalf consumer bodies work. It is evident how such tools enable consumers to alert bodies acting in their interest to what is happening, where, to what extent and who/what is the cause. All of which can be logged in near-real time. This can include specific forms of detriment, as well as wider experiences of products and services.

Organisations using this technology can gather intelligence, track and analyse emerging problems, target responses and support wider activities (eg supplementing evidence gathered by conventional means). In turn, consumers are empowered by the opportunity to be heard, to collaborate with and support bodies who are working on their behalf and, in some instances, benefit from the actions are taken. They can also gain a better awareness of local issues and help bring greater transparency and scrutiny to them; and in some cases collaborate with others in a similar position on peer-led responses. Moreover, they can access all of this through user friendly services that in some instances are more straightforward, convenient and powerful than conventional channels.

Crowd-sourced maps help to reveal patterns of detriment and capture information which may be slow to emerge or missed altogether using other services. They do so by employing a faster, simpler, more transparent and better targeted way of gathering reports. These services can be easily accessible through a range of mobile devices, supporting submissions via: SMS, voicemail, twitter, email, smart phone apps as well as online forms. Consequently, it is a convenient and powerful way for consumers to draw attention to, and contribute their perspective on pressing issues.

We are currently exploring the potential that mapping technologies offer by researching and developing prototype tools to support delivery of our duties in the energy and postal sectors. We hope to create flexible tools that can help staff efficiently collect intelligence on emerging issues and information on consumer sentiment around specific issues.

We have already identified several topics where this approach could be complementary, including collaborative buying of renewable technologies, community or area based roll-outs, mis-selling and flood zone insurance issues.

For example, the proposal for deploying a crowd-sourced map during the smart meter roll-out is being discussed. As the roll-out progresses, teething problems are anticipated and issues are likely to crop up that will need addressing. These include, among others: mis-selling and pressured sales, technical problems – particularly in areas with little or no wireless signal – billing confusion and barriers to switching. Early warning of such problems could ensure that timely action is taken to address problems as they emerge, before they become widespread and help guarantee the promised benefits of smart metering are delivered. Data collected on installations that have worked well for consumers could contribute to identifying best-practice approaches that help ensure that consumers see the programme benefits. Limited means currently exist to register consumer experiences of the roll-out and monitor the process in real time. This initiative would address this absence by proposing a platform which enables continuous feedback between the consumers, suppliers and regulators.

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Published: September 2012

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