NYC pays residents to report issues - but the programs are too complicated. I designed a fix
New York City incentivizes reporting a handful of issues with cash rewards. But documenting the issues, filing them, and actually receiving your money can be daunting. There's a better way.
New York City has the largest population of any municipality in the United States, and sometimes the local government needs some help making sure everyone is following the rules. Luckily, the city is willing to pay residents who are able to document violations of certain ordinances.
Unfortunately, the process for submitting these complaints is needlessly complicated, especially if those who file complaints want to actually receive their cash rewards. If the goal is to empower the general public, the process should be an easy-to-use mobile app.
Context
New York City offers cash reward programs for reporting on at least four activities: unapproved truck or bus idling, illegal dumping, recycling theft, and violating noise ordinances.1 The New York City Council has also considered setting up a similar program for unlawful parking in bus lanes, on sidewalks, in cycling lanes, or in front of fire hydrants that protect schools.2
Although the specifics differ program-to-program, they generally follow a similar model:
A resident documents an individual or business committing a specified act of wrong-doing. If the photo or video documentation needs to be timestamped, such as with the NYC Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) Citizen’s Air Complaint Program, a third-party app must be used.
The resident then fills out a form and submits it along with the documentation to the relevant agency. Some programs require forms to be physically mailed in, whereas others allow electronic submission. For the latter, sometimes residents must email completed .PDF files and documentation via email, whereas in other circumstances there might be an electronic form. There is no guarantee that these electronic processes are optimized for mobile users.3
The city agency determines whether it should act on a report; if it deems the complaint worthy, it will move forward to fine the offender. The resident who reported the incident will either be notified electronically or by mail. Residents who filed reports must wait for the department to contact them.
If the offender ends up being fined, the resident who filed the report will not automatically receive their reward. If a complaint leads to a fine, the resident who filed it is entitled to a cut - but only if you manually contact the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH).4
While the programs are well-intentioned, the processes are too complicated. The fact that users cannot easily complete the entire process on their smartphones leads to needless friction, likely complications, and potentially confusing situations.
For example, video and photo evidence must be timestamped for submission to the Citizen’s Air Complaint Program. The DEP officially suggests downloading a freemium app called “Timestamp Camera Enterprise” by a developer listed solely as 玉彬陈 [sic] in the App Store.5
The Citizen’s Noise Complaint Program, also run by the DEP, is so cumbersome to use that a member of the public created an entire website to guide people through the eight-step process.
And for all of these programs, if a resident’s complaint ends up leading to a fine, they have to manually reach out to OATH to collect it.6 On a subjective level, it feels wrong for you to go through all of this effort to essentially do the government’s job – and still need to put in additional work to receive the money you are owed.
Luckily, there is a better way.
Ideation
The intent of these citizen complaint systems is to disincentivize bad behaviors, to incentivize residents to report these bad behaviors, and to generally improve the community. The big picture issues with the current systems are that they are not user-friendly and not optimized for smartphone access, and thus present too much friction in the user experience.
My proposed solution stems from the following three principles.
First, all citizen complaint programs that offer cash rewards should be housed in one location - at least from the user’s point of view. The DEP, OATH, and–perhaps in the future–Department of Transportation (DOT) can appropriately adjudicate complaints behind the scenes, while providing members of the public with a seamless experience.7
Second, as virtually all complaints are likely made by members of public who record the alleged wrongdoings on their smartphones, the citizen complaint process must be mobile-friendly, if not indeed mobile-focused.
Third, members of the public should be able to complete all parts of the citizen complaint system within a single application. Reducing inefficiencies to the greatest extent possible between spotting wrongdoing and reporting it–and, perhaps, being rewarded for doing so–must be a priority.
Therefore, the solution is an all-in-one smartphone application that covers all three major parts of a successful citizen complaint program: reporting the alleged offense, tracking the status of the aforementioned offense, and receiving payment if the report is successful.
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Design Methodology
When users witness a potential violation, their first instinct will be to start recording. In lieu of a dedicated home screen, the Record tab will appear first to make the required timestamped recording process as efficient as possible. If users wish to submit timestamped documentation from a different app or start filling out the form before recording a potential violation, they are also able to do so.
The camera sheet enables users to record timestamped footage without leaving the app, which simplifies the user experience. Different kinds of violations have varying minimum recording lengths for video documentation, so a timer countdown is affixed to the camera sheet. Tapping on the button to the right of the timer opens a context menu from which a user can quickly select a another violation type and its corresponding minimum recording length.
The reporting form uses progressive disclosure to present the user with questions relevant only to the alleged violation that they are reporting. This prevents users from being overwhelmed by questions irrelevant to their current issue, and speeds up the reporting process.
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Users can view all submitted complaints in the Logs tab. Each row gives quick information at a glance, including the type of complaint, violation location and time of submission, and the color-coded status of the complaint. All submissions are labeled pending until the complaint is either rejected or the perpetrator has completed payment of the fine.
The amount of money awarded to user from successfully fining a perpetrator can be found in the Earnings tab. Here the user can view all of their earnings, export this information, or transfer money to their personal bank account. Money listed as pending means that the perpetrator has been issued a fine, but the relevant city department has not yet received the money and deposited the finder’s fee into the user’s account.
Tapping on any submitted complaint in the Logs tab brings up the full details of the submission. The current status of the submission is clearly identified at the top, along with a brief summary of where it stands. Submissions can easily be shared or exported, as well.
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Looking Forward
With the vast majority of New Yorkers owning a smartphone, citizen complaint programs have huge potential.8 It goes without saying that I would like to see the New York City Council establish a similar program for unlawful parking on sidewalks, in bus lanes, in cycling lanes, or in front of fire hydrants that near to schools.9
Perhaps the New York City Council could use cash rewards to incentivize civilian reporting of the misuse of city-issued parking permits–also known as placard abuse–or vehicles with obscured, fake, or “temporary” license plates attempting to evade tolls or traffic enforcement cameras.
I considered gamifying the app experience, perhaps via Apple Game Center support. Enabling users to see leaderboards across the Five Boroughs of successful fines could further incentivize reporting. However, I decided against this as to not distract from the serious nature of the reporting programs.
Any serious consideration of this sort of all-in-one reporting app would also necessitate rethinking how agencies receive and manage these reporting programs. Given the huge upsides, I believe that it would be worth it.
Conclusion
Incentivizing locals to report issues they encounter effectively crowdsources the enforcement of hard-to-police regulations. This can lead to members of the public feeling a sense of empowerment, rather than hopelessness at quality-of-life laws that go unenforced.
For example, if locals witness an illegally-idling vehicle and no one enforcing the law, they may feel annoyed that the city is neglecting its duties. However, if they are able to report the offense and earn some money as a reward, their annoyance will likely be muted by their sense of opportunity.
As long as the internal processes toward those who are accused of wrongdoing are fair, citizens complaint programs can go a long way toward achieving healthier, safer, and happier communities.10
The New York Police Department (NYPD) also has cash rewards for reporting graffiti vandalism and illegal gun ownership. I decided against including them in this app concept because the process of reporting these is different than the offenses, as essentially the NYPD will reward you if an anonymous tip results in a prosecution. However, the other offenses require documentation, paperwork, and legwork to receive the cash reward - all of which this app concept would help to make more efficient.
Last year, the New York City Department of Transportation launched a website where people could report lane blockages. The site itself is slow, difficult to use, and seemingly outdated.
For example, although the NYC-DEP’s reporting site for the Citizen’s Air Complaint Program is mostly usable, UI elements overlap with one another, certain buttons simply do not work on mobile, and some pages do not fit when viewed on a vertically-oriented smartphone browser. Do they intend for people to document incidents with their smartphones, and then complete the form on a tablet or computer?
Unfortunately, the New York City Council voted last year to cap rewards for noise complaints at $5 or $10 per summons. Prior to that, one man had made over $600,000 from reporting businesses that were breaking the law. There were some legitimate issues with the program - for example, a single business could theoretically receive numerous complaints before they even were notified of the first one. The DEP proposed changing this, along with a few other common-sense reforms, but the City Council ended up gutting the rewards system. This revision became law in January.
In English, this reads Yubin Chen. The same app is also on the Google Play Store, but from a developer named Bian Di; it also uses a freemium pricing model. The so-called “Pro Version” costs $9.99.
Despite the convoluted process, groups of environmentalists still take on the challenge.
Creating an all-in-one app would likely take some behind-the-scenes effort to actually implement, especially in terms of communicating between different city agencies. This case study merely focuses on how the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) of what an all-in-one app could be designed.
I also support removing the maximum cap on rewards for reporting businesses that illegally violate noise ordinances. Other reforms, such as preventing potential offenders from receiving numerous complaints before they even were notified of the first complaint, can improve the program without defanging it.
Readers might wonder why I am focusing on illegal parking in front of fire hydrants specifically near schools. The most recent proposal would specifically “create a new violation and civil penalty for hazardous obstruction by a vehicle of a […] fire hydrant when such vehicle is located within a radial distance of 2,640 feet of a school building, entrance, or exit.” But this begs the question: why not ban all “hazardous obstruction by a vehicle” of all fire hydrants?
It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge that well-intentioned reporting programs could go too far if stretched to their logical extremes. No one wants to live in a Minority Report-esque society where their every action is surveilled by their own neighbors and where even minor crimes–such as jaywalking–are fiercely prosecuted. I certainly do not!
However, there is a huge difference between 1984 and selecting a handful of prevalent public nuisances and incentivizing the public to complain about them. We should not allow the slippery slope fallacy to prevent good public policy from being implemented.