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Systematic Analysis Reduces One Chicago Location's Parking Tickets by 50%

posted by martyb on Wednesday August 15 2018, @11:25AM   Printer-friendly
from the Your-honor,-there-was-a-tree-branch-blocking-the-sign! dept.

infodragon writes:

Utilizing FOIA and some clever software Mr. Chapman quickly identifies a troubled spot for parking in Chicago and gets results!

http://mchap.io/using-foia-data-and-unix-to-halve-major-source-of-parking-tickets.html

The story relates how the author used Freedom of Information Act requests to gather raw data on parking tickets issued in Chicago. What he received was a semicolon-delimited text file containing a great number of data entry errors. The author outlines the steps taken to clean and extract data on a likely problematic parking location. Armed with this data, he visited the location and discovered very confusing signage. He reported this to the city, who rectified the signage. This led to a 50 percent decrease in the number of tickets issued for that location.

I immediately asked myself three things

1. How much more effective has that corner become?
2. Who's grumbling about the loss of revenue?
3. What would happen if more of us did this very thing?

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @02:56PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @02:56PM (#721800)

    > It's just like reporting pot holes,

    This. I report pot holes in my vicinity, in particular ones along the edge of the road where I bicycle. When they get fixed (usually a week or two, weather depending), I send a short "thanks" email to the guy I've found at the Department of Transportation.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @07:29PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @07:29PM (#721895)

    This kind of action is particularly effective, especially the thank you note.