When New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took office, he
vowed to bring government closer to the people. It would not be easy for a city
that needed 14 pages in the phone book just to list its municipal services.
Bloomberg and his team wanted to purge that bureaucracy, creating a single 311
number for New Yorkers to access non-emergency services 24 hours a day.
Working closely with the city's Department of Information Technology
and Telecommunications, Accenture took the nation's largest 311 project live in
just seven months. As a result, New York City residents now need to dial only
three digits to obtain the help they need in 171 different languages. Launched
in March 2003, the widely praised service expects to field nearly 5 million
calls by the end of 2003.
NYC 311 is available 24 hours a day to assist callers like
Michael Peter Evans. Aided by more than 35 Accenture volunteers, the service
even stayed up and running during New York's August blackout.
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