There are 68 councils in SA who consider a range of issues from community gardens to traffic calming. There is a huge opportunity for councils in SA to use artificial intelligence to reduce duplication and deliver better outcomes for residents.
To understand how councils can use AI to improve efficiency we need to know how they operate. Often a councillor or resident will make a complaint to the CEO, say, for example, speeding down a steep backstreet. If the complaint is valid and sound the administration might undertake a survey, develop a way to solve the problem and submit a report to council. In this case there is an added complexity because the hill is steep, only certain traffic calming measures are appropriate on a steep hill, roundabouts are out. A report will be written after staff have spoken to DPTI, local residents, the ward Councillors and traffic engineers. The report might be 100 pages or more by the time it is completed. The council will then read the report and make a decision whether to proceed or not. It will contain specialist advice on the traffic calming measures available on steep roads.
I would bet my bottom dollar that this isn’t the first time a 100 page report has been written on traffic calming measures on steep roads. I am sure that the Adelaide Hills council have considered the issue of speeding on steep roads in the past; maybe it was 3 months ago, maybe it was 10 years ago. However, finding that report and using the information that another council has put together to solve this same problem is near impossible. With 68 councils and tens of thousands of employees all churning out 600 pages of agendas every 2 weeks, council officers have little chance of finding a report like this.
This is where the application of artificial intelligence could transform how councils do business. The technology is readily available now to create a dataset of all council agendas and reports. A collective dataset of all council documents and Machine Learning AI would enable a council officer to find and use that recently completed report from Victor Harbor Council on traffic calming measures on hills with steep inclines or perhaps a report on the difficulties faced by open community gardens or a report how to better manage a hard rubbish collection system.
I think now is the time for councils to improve their efficiency and reduce costs by using off-the-shelf available technology. To do this though, the 68 councils in SA will need to share information and actively contribute to a central dataset. This would be the first step in bringing AI to councils.
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