Arild Kristiansen, who runs the surfing school in Varberg, is seen here kite surfing through the spray at Apelviken. Photo: Paul Gunnarsson
Varberg municipality is surfing its way into the future with help from Infracontrol Online. It aims to provide faster, better service through simplified management of fault reports leading to better dialogs with residents. They will also use the service to monitor technical systems in order to detect any disruptions in time. Two of the major advantages they see with the service are its use by so many municipalities and the fact that it is constantly updated to meet user requirements.
Stefan Jacobson is Varberg municipality’s Highway Engineer in the Harbor and Highway Administration in charge of introducing Infracontrol Online. He tells us why he chose this particular service:
“It suits our operation extremely well. The service is already well developed with regard to the functions we need, and because it’s updated constantly, there’s little risk of our outgrowing it. Also important for us are the extremely user-friendly functions the service offers, both for our residents and those who use the service in our operation.”
Better, faster service for residents
Varberg municipality will mainly use Infracontrol Online for managing fault reports submitted by telephone, email, website forms or a special app. They will have a better overview and control of all open cases and be better able to follow up and report occurrences in the operation. But of course, the most important thing is taking care of observations properly and making sure information reaches the right person.
“We want to make case management safer, faster and simpler,” says Stefan Jacobson. “Infracontrol Online will help us make sure that everything is always taken care of properly while we also enjoy better communications with our residents. The aim is to provide faster, better service.”
According to Interaction Designer Karin Ideland, most municipalities like to create a constructive dialog with their residents, and an increasing number are using Infracontrol’s cloud service to achieve it:
“It’s not only about receiving and passing on observations or fault reports, it’s just as important that the municipality’s case managers are able to communicate easily with information providers. Our service provides a very well developed means to achieve this whereby all communication is linked to the open issue.”
She says that this is a good thing when e.g. the municipality’s case managers need additional information about an observation or if they wish to update an information provider about the action being taken.
Google Street View is integrated into Infracontrol Online which makes it easy to recognize the location of a fault report or observation.
Monitoring operations in technical installations
Stefan Jacobsson says that they are also planning to use Infracontrol Online to monitor operations:
“We have plans to connect all of our public lighting, so we’ve started a pilot project with a lighting control center.”
Another pilot project he mentions is the supervision of railroad barriers on the municipality’s industrial spurs where malfunctions must be detected quickly. In all, just over 100,000 alarm points are monitored by Infracontrol Online today.
Soon up an running
The fact that the service can be introduced as a functioning operational tool so quickly is one of the things appreciated by Varberg and many other municipalities.
“Infracontrol Online is a well-established service specially adapted for municipal administrations,” says Karin Ideland. “This means start-up is fast and service benefits soon appear.”
She says that introduction usually takes 1-2 months depending on the number and size of the departments concerned.
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