Snowstorm-free winter results in fewer 311 calls

The city’s complaints hotline has cooled, largely due to a drop in snow and ice calls.

According to the city’s open data system, the total calls about issues on public land from Jan. 1, 2015 to Jan. 1, 2016, fell more than 9,000 from the previous year.

Though that’s just a drop in the bucket of the 2.1 million total calls and emails last year, which include calls about private property and simple questions about city services.

There was a reason for the decline, said Maria Schrijvers, acting branch manager for customer information services. “No. 1, we had no major events.” Those events could include things such as large snow storms or power outages.

“What we usually see with major weather events is that it has an impact across several areas of the city,” she said.

For example, a massive snowstorm happens and traffic get congested. Buses run slower and calls come in to ask about buses being late.

Once that snow melts, flooding can occur, which brings in calls for drainage crews.

Without the initial storm, the proverbial snowball can’t start rolling.

What it meant last year was a drop in snow and ice maintenance files created for public land. There were 7,044 calls, but nearly 18,000 a year prior.

Many of the call areas did go up, including for potholes and sidewalk maintenance, but not enough to make up for the unusual dip in calls for snow clearing.

Schrijvers said some of the change could also be attributed to more people going online to get information before calling the city help line — visits to the city website increased from 11 million in 2014 to more than 12 million in 2015. One thing the numbers don’t show is how the 311 smartphone app, which launched in July 2014, is doing.

“There was such a drastic decrease in volume, we just finished a full year with the app,” Schrijvers said.

“I think it’s too early to tell.”