Boston 311 Hotline Response Prediction

Boston 311 is a non-emergency hotline for constituents to request City services and information.

While there have been tens of thousands of requests submitted since the hotlines installation, not every request can be, or is completed. Some service requests are time sensitive for public health and safety, including reporting a broken traffic signal, requesting needle cleanup, and getting a pothole fixed. Click here to find out more information about Boston's 311 program.

There has been online debate surrounding the efficacy of the 311 hotline in completing requests. Some constituents argue 311 is an ineffective way to pacify the public. One UniversalHUB user stated they were still waiting for a solution after having sent in 50+ reports of an inaccessible wheelchair ramp on the street. Others staunchly defend 311. Another UniversalHUB poster said, "311 has become the elite's whipping boy that allows them to keep complaining about the same thing over and over." Read more of this discussion here.

Constituents should be able to predict the completion timeline of their request, (or whether their request will be completed at all). This prediction model will serve to hold the government accountable for completing 311 service requests in an appropriate time frame. This project will work to identify which service requests are prioritized and understand the relationship between a request's features (e.g. type, department, ward, source) and its expected completion timeframe. This will allow us to see which requests the City of Boston prioritizes.The ultimate goal of this project is to build a predictor that will allow constituents to know an expected timeline for their 311 request's completion.

Dataset

This project will use a dataset of all 311 service requests from 2011 to 2023, provided by the City of Boston to observe the following features for each request.

• case_enquiry_id
  • identification number
• open_dt
  • date of request submission
• closed_dt
  • date of request colsure
• ontime
  • request is either ontime or overdue
• case_status
  • requests current status
• closure_reason
  • text indicating findings or work done to close a given case
• case_title
  • title given to a case, entered by call takers on a call to call basis
• subject
  • part of a case classification hierarchy (subject -> reason -> type)
  • subject denotes which department a case is assigned to
• reason
  • part of a case classification hierarchy (subject -> reason -> type)
  • this is an overall 'umbrella' for a collection of similar case types
• type
  • part of a case classification hierarchy (subject -> reason -> type)
  • individual case type entered by call taxer
• department
  • department a case is assigned to
• fire_district
  • boston fire department fire district a case falls within
• pwd_district
  • public works district a case falls within
• city_council_district
  • city council district a case falls within
• police_district
  • police district a case falls within
• neighborhood
  • neighborhood relayed by caller
  • there are redundancies and missing values within this field
• neighborhood_services_district
  • districts under the Office of Neighborhood Services, a City of Boston office that "encourages, facilitates, and maximizes citizen input and participation in all aspects of government through service requests, neighborhood meetings, mailings, and emergency responses."
• ward
  • election ward a case falls within
• precinct
  • election precinct a case falls within
• location_zipcode
  • zip code a case falls within

case_enquiry_id	open_dt	target_dt	closed_dt	ontime	case_status	closure_reason	case_title	subject	reason	type	queue	department	submittedphoto	closedphoto	location	fire_district	pwd_district	city_council_district	police_district	neighborhood	neighborhood_services_district	ward	precinct	location_street_name	location_zipcode	latitude	longitude	source
1.01E+11	2/17/2023 7:54	2/21/2023 8:30		OVERDUE	Open		Pothole	Public Works Department	Highway Maintenance	Request for Pothole Repair	BWSC_All Cases	BWSC			INTERSECTION of Fenwood Rd & Huntington Ave Boston MA	9	10A	7	B2	Mission Hill	14	10	1003	INTERSECTION Fenwood Rd & Huntington Ave		42.3594	-71.0587	City Worker App
1.01E+11	2/20/2023 10:26	2/20/2024 10:26		ONTIME	Open		Tree Maintenance Requests	Parks & Recreation Department	Trees	Tree Maintenance Requests	PARK_Tree Maintenance Request	PARK			280 W Broadway South Boston MA 02127	6	5	2	C6	South Boston / South Boston Waterfront	5	Ward 6	601	280 W Broadway	2127	42.3392	-71.051	Constituent Call
1.01E+11	2/25/2023 10:41	3/15/2023 8:30		ONTIME	Open		Abandoned Vehicles	Transportation - Traffic Division	Enforcement & Abandoned Vehicles	Abandoned Vehicles	BTDT_AVRS Interface Queue	BTDT			45 Hobart St Brighton MA 02135	11	4	9	D14	Allston / Brighton	15	Ward 22	2211	45 Hobart St	2135	42.3551	-71.1594	Citizens Connect App
1.01E+11	1/1/2023 0:50	1/4/2023 8:30	1/3/2023 9:34	ONTIME	Closed	Case Closed. Closed date : 2023-01-03 09:34:10.27 Case Noted	Parking Enforcement	Transportation - Traffic Division	Enforcement & Abandoned Vehicles	Parking Enforcement	BTDT_Parking Enforcement	BTDT			6 Binford St Boston MA 02210			0		Boston	0	6		6 Binford St	2210	42.3594	-71.0587	Citizens Connect App
1.01E+11	2/25/2023 11:12			ONTIME	Open		Mattress Pickup	Public Works Department	Sanitation	Mattress_Pickup	PWDx_WM_Mattress_Pickup	PWDx			12 Centre Ave Dorchester MA 02124	8	7	3	C11	Dorchester	8	Ward 16	1603	12 Centre Ave	2124	42.2926	-71.0632	Constituent Call
1.01E+11	1/1/2023 3:23		1/3/2023 13:17	ONTIME	Closed	Case Closed. Closed date : 2023-01-03 13:17:53.173 Case Resolved Emailed owner to see if dog was found. AT	Animal Lost	Animal Control	Animal Issues	Animal Lost	ANML02_LostFound	ANML			70 E India Row Boston MA 02110	3	1C	1	A1	Downtown / Financial District	3	Ward 3	306	70 E India Row	2110	42.3582	-71.0506	Constituent Call

There is potential to be concerned about a lack of correlation between features, such as location, and the completion time of a request. That being said, it is only logical that certain categories of requests (the reason feature of the dataset) will be prioritzed, such as needle pickup requests being fulfilled faster then tree maintence requests. Having this inherent inequalities in completion time will allow the project and prediction model to be completed, even if there are no further correlating features found after completing the linear regression models for each factor.

Method

This project will utilize machine learning prediction by grouping the data based on factor (i.e subject, reason, type, department, fire_district, etc.) and comparing it to completion time in a linear regression. After training, the models will be tested and we will identify which factors have the best ability to predict response rate/ completion, then we will build a final predictor using the most relevant factors.

Note: How to determine the model's accuracy will be a group discussion about sensitivity and specificity