🍎 citymeetings.nyc #14
MyCity Chatbot, School Bus Transportation Services
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For a complete listing of published meetings, visit https://citymeetings.nyc.
This week's highlights are from hearings on:
- The MyCity portal and chatbot.
- School bus transportation services.
Hearing on the MyCity portal and chatbot
NY State Senator Kristen Gonzalez gives testimony.
The MyCity chatbot is an AI chatbot that provides New Yorkers with information on starting and operating a business in the city.
It ran into some very predictable problems!
Reliable and useful ways to deploy AI in city government exist.
citymeetings.nyc is one of them: legislative directors and folks in intergovernmental affairs trust its output and rely on it weekly.
- Senator Kristen Gonzalez gave testimony on the MyCity portal and government use of AI. Link
- "Let me make one thing abundantly clear: New York City made a major error in releasing the MyCity chatbot."
- 141K users have visited the MyCity portal. 19K individuals have queried the chatbot. Link
- OTI plans on updating the chatbot beyond small business services queries. Link
- Council member Gutiérrez, regarding the chatbot -- "I think there there was a little bit more than just ... a little flack ... on the information that people were were getting back." Link
- The initial chatbot was launched on OpenAI's GPT 3.5. It was upgraded to GPT 4 this summer. Link
- Vickie Paladino, re: iPhone 16 -- "That's all AI. I don't know why anybody would wanna put their life in their hands." Link
- The chatbot collects data on questions asked, accuracy of information provided, number of people served, and business areas queried. Link
- It does not collect personally-identifiable information.
- The jobs portal in MyCity doubled the city job application rate. Link
- It also resulted in a 326% increase in visits vs. the "legacy PeopleSoft application". Link
- "I think any place that you wanna work if you look at the digital experience as, like, your first glimpse into what the front door of that operation looks like -- the legacy jobs portal was very poor."
- They're working on an "integration playbook" so agencies can incorporate their applications into the MyCity portal. Link
- Their focus is on projects with a spend of over $22M, not specific end-user needs. Link
- CTO Matthew Fraser shares that the team is keen to stick to a web-based solution vs. a mobile app. Link
- 67 contracts have been issued for MyCity development (58 MWBEs). Total spend is ~$60MM. Link
- There will be new RFP processes for upcoming features. Link
- Albert Fox Cahn at the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project gave scathing testimony. Link
- Kate Brennan at the AI Now Institute gave testimony stating their concerns. Link
- Kate Kaye at the World Privacy Forum gave testimony stating their concerns, too. Link
Hearing on school bus transportation services in NYC
Representatives from NYC Public Schools give testimony.
- Parents are regularly reporting late arrivals, missed school days, and difficulty accessing alternative transportation options. Link
- The bus system transports over 140K students daily to nearly 3.5K schools using 9K bus routes. Link
- NYC contracts with one of the largest bus fleets in the world. Link
- Some bus contracts have been in place for 45 years without being rebid. Link
- Employee Protection Provisions in bus contracts are now disallowed by the NY Supreme Court, but existing contracts have them and create obstacles to rebidding. Link
- NYC is short about 300 bus drivers. Link
- There were over 80K reported delays in the 2023-2024 school year. Link
- Julie Won expresses concerns about NYCSBUS, a non-profit established in 2020 with an $890MM contract to operate 10% of the bus routes until June 2025. Link
- The implementation of GPS tracking systems in buses, mandated in 2019, was implemented this year. Julie Won says "it may have just been faster to just put an air tag on the buses." Link
- A major challenge with the GPS system is getting bus drivers to log into it. Link
- The bus tracking app has been downloaded by $57K parents. 18,800 parents have successfully logged into the app so far this academic year. Link
- The city has pledged to electrify the school bus fleet by 2035. Link
- "How does NYC Public Schools determine bus routes?" Link
- Some students living in Brooklyn going to school in Manhattan have to be on the bus by 6 but get to school every day at 8:20. Link
- DOE talks about software they use for bus route planning. Link
- Per-day transportation costs for general education students is $26 and $104 for special education students. Link
- The number of students receiving Individualized Education Program (IEP)-mandated bus services is 66K school-age and 10K pre-K. Link
- (Is this actually half the student population -- 140K --being transported every day?)
- Lincoln Restler argues that school bus contracts are "one of the areas in city government where we have the most endemic corruption" and calls out the administration. Link
- A pilot that installs cameras on bus's stop arms is underway. Link
- This was a long hearing with tons of testimony from parents and advocates. You can see them all by filtering "PUBLIC TESTIMONY" here. Link
Thanks for reading!
Comments, questions, or feedback? Reply to this email or shoot me a note at vikram@citymeetings.nyc