Mayang still uses the app to report problems she finds in public facilities or services, such as scattered trash, potholes on the road or broken street lights.

She likes it when her complaints are addressed quickly by city officials or the Public Facility Maintenance Agency’s so-called orange troops.

“It usually takes just a few hours [after the complaint is lodged] to clean up trash. It takes one or two days to replace broken street lights,” she said.

“I still recommend the app to my friends. Many are hesitant because they think Qlue has stopped operating, but it hasn’t.”

In a recent interview with The Jakarta Post, Qlue founder and president director Rama Raditya said Qlue had expanded to 25 cities across Indonesia and used artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet-of-things (IoT) in most of its products.

“We work with a number of township managements from various developers. We also established smart concepts for industrial sites like in Pulo Gadung [East Jakarta] and Paiton [East Java],” he explained.

“At the national level, we partnered up with the National Disaster Mitigation Agency [BNPB]. We are also working with 22 provincial police departments to develop systems that aim to support their efforts in law enforcement.”

Rama agreed that Qlue is still widely associated with former Jakarta governor Basuki “BTP” Tjahaja Purnama, who first introduced the app to the public during his tenure. Qlue was developed in 2014 and at that time, BTP promoted the app as a direct channel for public complaints amid his administration’s bid to better serve residents.

When Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan took office in 2017, many assumed that Qlue would stop operating and that JSC would cease operations. Although the program continued under Anies, the number of complaints coming in through the app had a steep decline to currently around 300 per day from more than 1,000 complaints lodged per day under BTP’s administration.

When asked about whether the current Jakarta administration has been in touch with the company to discuss any potential development, Rama said, “No, we have not.”

He explained that at the moment, the smart city concept in Jakarta was still at the analytics level and not yet at the predictive level.

“This means the Jakarta still focuses on managing issues based on reports or data collected through JSC channels. We have yet to reach a level where the city could predict problems and anticipate them before they happen,” he said.

However, Rama said he appreciated the city administration for still using the app to tackle various urban problems in Jakarta.

Qlue chief commercial officer Maya Arvini said the number of complaints lodged via Qlue was on the rebound.

From January to September this year, the app received 86,000 complaints, a 24 percent increase from the same period in the previous year.

“According to our records, the follow-up rate surged from 88 percent in 2018 to 91 percent this year. This means that more complaints lodged through the app were resolved compared to last year,” she said.

Maya said the reports were still dominated by illegal parking, scattered trash, incorrectly placed outdoor advertisements and damaged plants in public places. During the rainy season, most complaints are related to floods.

Aside from Qlue, there are a number of other channels under the JSC program through which Jakarta residents can report problems with public facilities and public services.

They can report to the city’s official social media accounts, like @DKIJakarta on Twitter and Pemprov DKI Jakarta on Facebook and the “Balai Warga” section on jakarta.go.id. The JSC now also tracks complaints sent to the Jakarta governor’s personal social media accounts.

For those who prefer making their reports face-to-face, complaint centers are also available at City Hall, the Jakarta Inspectorate, as well as district and subdistrict offices. Alternatively, residents can also send an email to dki@jakarta.go.id or a short message to 1708 or +628111272206.

All of these channels are logged into the JSC’s citizen relationship manager system.

In the future, Rama said Qlue aimed to slowly but surely change people’s behavior so that the smart city program would be supported by smart citizens.

He realized that providing channels to speed up the city administration’s process of addressing problems was not equal to helping the city solve its issues from the grass roots. As an example, people would continue to litter because even if someone reported their behavior, the orange troops would eventually clean up their trash.

“Years ago, I didn’t feel guilty using a Transjakarta lane on a congested road, but after I developed Qlue, I stopped doing that and realized that I could be reported by anyone,” Rama said.

“That’s the kind of mindset-change we are aiming for. When people are used to spotting problems and reporting them, they themselves will start to avoid causing problems.”

In a bid to encourage more residents to help develop the capital, the Jakarta administration in 2018 launched another platform that aimed to complement Qlue.

The new platform is BERiDE at jakarta.beride.id, through which people are expected to contribute their ideas for the city’s development.

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