Automatic Type Detection of 311 Service Requests Based on Customer Provided Descriptions

Figures & data

Table 1. Number of SRs and population per city and year

		2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
Cincinnati, OH	SRs	54,987	91,390	97,314	107,931	111,857	106,897	115,872	107,406
	Population	296,758	297,775	298,509	299,338	299,707	301,648	302,605	302,605
San Diego, CA	SRs						144,404	182,781	309,202
	Population						1,414,427	1,425,976	1,425,976

Table 2. Standardized minor SR types under twelve major categories; the top row shows the major categories and the following rows show the minor types

Maintenance	Complaint	Streets/ Sidewalks	Transportation	Garbage and Recycling	Information	Cleaning and Rodents	Parks and Trees	Public Mobility Services	Animal	Air and Water Quality	Poverty
Construction and Plumbing	Residential/Street Noise	Street/Road Repair	Parking Violation	Missed Garbage/Recycling Pick-up	Information Request	Missing/Damaged Catch Basin/Manhole Cover	Tree Care/Removal/Debris and Tall Grass/Weed	Bus Operator/Late/Safety Complaint	Animal Control/ Care	Water Quality Complaint	Low-Income Senior Housing
Electrical	Aircraft/Helicopter Noise	Sidewalk/Curb Repair	Parking Permit	Garbage/Recycling Collection	Lost and Found	Cleaning and Sanitation	New Tree Request	Taxi Complaint	Dead Animal	Air Quality Complaint	Homeless Encampment
No Heat and Hot Water	Nuisance Complaint	Street Light Repair/Add	Parking Ticket Contest	Bulky Items	Online/Phone Payment Problem	Rat and Rodent	Park Maintenance	Shared Mobility Device Complaint	Animal Bite	Asbestos Complaint	Panhandling
No Water	Illegal Posting/Signs	Street/Road Sign Repair/Replacement/New	Abandoned Vehicle	Illegal Dumping	Billing Address/Name Incorrect	Graffiti Removal	Park Lighting
Vacant Property	Property Violations	Traffic/Pedestrian Signal Repair	Driving Violations	Garbage/Recycling Cart Repair/Replacement/New Service	Benefit Card Replacement	Sewage/Storm Water
Water Turn Off Request	Tenant and Landlord Dispute	Street/Sidewalk Sweeping	Street/Road/Sidewalk Obstruction	Remove Unwanted Garbage/Recycling Cart	Business License Application	Mold
Elevator	Drug Activity	Snow Removal and Icy Condition	Bus Stop Request	Hazardous Waste	FCCS Refund Request
Smoke Detector Repair/Installation	Drinking	Parking Meter Repair/Request	Oversize Vehicle Complaint	Abandoned Toters/Cans/Containers
Boilers Inspection	Report Litterer	Bus Stop Shelter Repair	Derelict Bicycle	Recycling Enforcement
Fire Hydrant Repair/Request	Smoking	Speed Bump Request
Vending Machine Repair	Consumer Complaint about a Purchase

Figure 1. Percentage of major SR categories in each city.

Table 3. Number of SR types before and after standardization in each city

	Number of original classes	Number of minor classes	Number of major classes
Cincinnati	670	41	10
San Diego	525	24	9

Figure 2. LSTM memory cell architecture.

Table 4. The vocabulary size of SR descriptions, the maximum length of SR descriptions, and the training and test classification accuracy, in each city

	Size of vocabulary	Maximum number of characters in the description	Number of minor classes	Training accuracy on minor classes	Generalization accuracy on minor classes	Number of major classes	Training accuracy on major classes	Generalization accuracy on major classes
Cincinnati	85,164	320	41	81.34%	71.33%	10	86.78%	78.44%
San Diego	81,617	921	24	92.02%	80.85%	9	93.37%	83.03%
Both cities	139,630	921	46	87.58%	73.85%	12	90.69%	78.79%

Table 5. Misclassified SR descriptions from different cities and the reason for their misclassification by the machine

City	Request Description	Actual Class	Predicted Class	Reason for mistake
Cincinnati	At the end of the road been sitting there for months has a flat tire light blue impala … plate = ********.	Other	Transportation	A
	Tree limb hanging.	Other	Parks and Trees	A
	Have additional in area (will report on separate form).	Streets/Sidewalks	Garbage and Recycle	B
	Request entered through the Web. Refer to Intake Questions for further description.	Other	Garbage and Recycle	B
	Windows.	Cleaning and Rodents	Other	B
	On the front face of the building there is black spray painting.	Cleaning and Rodents	Other	C
	Leaking, and it is red-tagged, and is making huge ice field in front of driveway which is hazardous … please repair.	Maintenance	Streets/Sidewalks	C
San Diego	Car parked far from curb. In the street.	Other	Transportation	A
	Faded signs with graffiti.	Cleaning and Rodents	Streets/Sidewalks	A
	The stop sign on the ground is faded.	Other	Streets/Sidewalks	A
	Speed Bump needed.	Other	Streets/Sidewalks	A
	The tree in front of my home is raising the sidewalk. It also has gone under my home foundation and is cracking my cement flooring.	Streets/Sidewalks	Parks and Trees	A
	Denver St and Claremont Dr.	Garbage and Recycle	Streets/Sidewalks	B
	1–2 trees down in bill clearer community park playground.	Parks and Trees	Other	C
	Post is an ADA issue and should be removed as it only has one telephone wire connected to it.	Other	Streets/Sidewalks	C
	Stop sign at the intersection in need of repair after car accident.	Streets/Sidewalks	Other	C

Data Availability Statement

The data in this study is available at http://us-cities.survey.okfn.org/