CBUS 311 4+

Wouldn’t expect less than a half-baked release from this failed public-private partnership of a city. I can no longer see a heat map of requests (or see if something I wanted to report has already been reported), can’t make sense of my service request history as it looks to be put out of order in a terrible migration execution. Shows my address for bulk pickup service requests I didn’t make for my own house?? I use 311 as one of few tools available to the average resident to put pressure on slumlords trashing the neighborhood with illegal dumping and eviction cleanouts, housing in disrepair and improper trash management. This just makes it harder.

I don’t usually write poor reviews but this app (and the folks behind it) either are incredibly poorly staffed, inexperienced UI engineers, or not interested in the needs of their users (which seems to be the whole draw of the product?)

Not always easy to use, form fill is clunky at best, and no real confirmation or trust that request is being looked at.

I requested bulk pickup three times for them to close the request around 11pm-12am the night before a pickup. There’s no way to follow up or communicate with them regarding this either. No support, no way to copy and paste requests, and even when I did call, their phone line disconnects after 5 minutes on hold. In general, this product is not usable, trustworthy, or accessible. I would contact the city about this if I could but I have a feeling they already know and aren’t interested in remedying the issue.

So far I’m not impressed. The old app had notifications for trash and recycling pick up that alerted me the evening before. With the new app I can only do email or calendar notifications. The calendar notification will only email me at 9 AM on the day of collection, which is too late to set out trash. The only other option is a notification at 9 AM the day before, while I am at work and can’t set my trash out. Also it looks like bulk trash pick up requests are more complicated on this new app. Personally I think a city as large as Columbus could do better.