App helps councils manage rogue trolleys

An app that allows people to alert governments to public maintenance issues is increasingly being used to report dumped trolleys, representing a potential new weapon in the war against what’s long been a major headache for councils.

Jarrod Pepper

The Snap Send Solve app, which can also pass information about dumped trolleys to retailers, has received more than 12,000 reports about trolleys since January, the company says.

The app launched 2010 and now has 600,000 users, and is being used by government authorities and councils in Australia and New Zealand to manage maintenance reporting.

While some councils take a feed from the app into their backend systems, others are monitoring free reports.

“We currently send Snap Send Solve reports to every local government authority in Australia and New Zealand, including 537 in Australia,” a spokeswoman told Government News.

“We have 45 Councils subscribing in Australia and another 14 in New Zealand and we also have non-local government authorities such as Telstra, NBN, Sydney Water and Melbourne University.”

Snap Send Solve Managing Director Jarrod Pepper says judging by the current trajectory, some 30,000 discarded trolleys will potentially  have been returned to their homes by the end of the year.

Previously, the only way to report an abandoned trolley was to contact a retailer directly or by downloading a a specific retailer app and lodging a report.

One stop reporting shop

Mr Pepper says the app provides a one stop shop for reporting other public maintenance issues such burst pipes, graffiti, fallen trees or injured wildlife.

“The app has the smarts to process the issue and automatically direct it to the relevant local retailer, business or authority,” he said in a statement.

Despite retailers trying to implement their own solutions and offering incentives to Australians to report abandoned trolleys, it’s still a major issue and as it’s creating headaches for locals and councils

Jarrod Pepper

“Despite retailers trying to implement their own solutions and offering incentives to Australians to report abandoned trolleys, it’s still a major issue and as it’s creating headaches for locals and councils.

“There have been a number of major ‘wars on trolleys’ declared by councillors and resident groups across Australia that have impacted suburbs such as Box Hill in Victoria and Hornsby and Kingswood in NSW, so it is clearly an ongoing national pain.”

Suburbs recording the highest number of trolley reports include Box Hill, Caroline Springs, Richmond, Dandenong and St Kilda in Victoria,  and Riverwood, Leichhardt and Glebe in NSW.

The worst offenders for rogue trolleys are Coles, Target, Dan Murphys, Woolworths, Kmart and Aldi.

 “We hope that by centralising and simplifying the reporting, we’re really starting to make a difference and help address this issue for locals across Australia,” Mr Pepper said.

He said with Australians spending more time at home and around their local neighbourhood due to COVID-19, there’s been a sharp rise in the number of local issues being reported by residents across the nation.

Issues being reported include dumped rubbish, parking issues, pavement issues, overgrown vegetation, graffiti and abandoned trolleys.

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