The VcSBC app and the ZUP plataform in São Bernardo do Campo-SP were officially launched on Monday morning, 15th, at a ceremony at the Noble Room of the City Hall. About 100 people were present, among public administrators, media professionals and organized society. The mayor of São Bernardo, Luiz Marinho, stated that the app is another step in the modernization process of city management.
“It is a challenge, a boldness, a courage to give the people the power to demand a continuous improvement in city services. It will be a process of collective learning for administrators and residents,” the mayor said. Also present in the announcement of the launch were the secretary of Urban Services, Tarcisio Secoli, the secretary of Administration and Administrative Modernization, José Augusto Guarnieri Pereira, councilman José Cloves, representing the City Council, and the president of the Instituto TIM, Manoel Horacio, among other authorities.
The project’s technical staff gave a demonstration of its operation. Through VcSBC, which can be accessed for free via computer, mobile phone or tablet, citizens can send pictures and texts requesting public services such as tree pruning, garbage collection and potholes repair, and track the progress of the request. The technical team receives these reports and forwards them to the areas responsible. For the City Government administrators and technicians, the ZUP platform also allows the creation of inventories and access and update information in real time during the field work. A first inventory has been completed, which collected data of 24,000 city trees to identify possible problems.
“Today we have an extremely important product, a first in Brazil, which will help in our relationship with city dwellers. All areas will work to resolve the demands of the population,” said Secoli. In total, 1,164 devices already have the app – only two days after the launch, VcSBC has been downloaded 847 times, which was in testing four weeks ago. Residents have already registered 1,309 requests, with an average of 50 to 100 daily reports.
São Bernardo do Campo was the first municipality to implement ZUP, which is a very important point in the platform development process. It took nearly two years of joint work, with the dedication of several departments, in which the municipal government accepted to share its urban management processes. The result of this partnership is a platform that is generic enough to work for various municipalities, and customizable enough to meet specific process.
“The purpose of the system is to increase the management and planning capacity of public administrators and enhance citizen participation in the city’s care,” Manoel Horacio explained. ZUP will be launched in other four municipalities: Rio de Janeiro-RJ, Maceió-AL, Florianópolis-SC and Boa Vista-RR.