Non-Emergency Responses in the 311 System During the Early Stage of the Pandemic: A Case Study of Kansas City

Abstract

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many U.S. citizens sought information and support from their city governance through the 311 non-emergency service request system. The main purpose of this study was to analyze the temporal trends in the 311 data before and during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic (3/1/2019 to 9/1/2020). Like other major U.S. cities such as Dallas and New York City, analysis of Kansas City 311 data showed that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a considerable decline in the aggregate number of calls. However, five service categories (“Public Safety”, “Public Health”, “Trash/Recycling”, “Parks & Recreation”, and “Property / Buildings / Construction”) experienced a substantial increase in call volume. To explore whether these changes are driven by COVID-related service requests, we used the description text data and identified 2,379 requests related to the pandemic, accounting for 4.3 percent of all non-emergency requests in Kansas City between March and August of 2020. More than half of the COVID-related requests reported mask violations where people failed to wear masks or did not wear masks properly. Compared to the non-COVID-related requests, citizens were more likely to seek non-emergency services through phone and email and less likely to use the web as means of communication. In addition, most changes in “Public Safety” and “Public Health” request volumes were driven by these COVID-related requests. These results can help city officials and decision makers improve the city’s resilience by allocating resources for the above-mentioned five service categories during a pandemic. In conclusion, analysis of open-access 311 data can be a catalyst for local governments to quickly and properly respond and build long-term resilience against future pandemics and other health threats.

Figures

Figure 1: Monthly number of requests containing COVID-19-related keywords in 2019-2020

Figure 2: Number of requests during March-August in 2019 versus 2020

Figure 3: Number of covid-related requests (green, left axis) vs COVID-19 new cases (blue, right axis) in 2020

Figure 4: Words Association Graph

Figure 5: Year-over-year change in covid-related requests (darker blue) vs year-over-year change in total requests (lighter blue) by category from March to August 2020