IRIS - Support system for classification of citizen inquiries or complaints

This information was sourced from the European Commission, Joint Research Centre (2026): PSTW: Public Sector Tech Watch latest dataset of selected cases. [Dataset] doi: 10.2905/JRC.J1MWC9R PID: http://data.europa.eu/89h/e8e7bddd-8510-4936-9fa6-7e1b399cbd92. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0).

IRIS is the service that allows citizens to report incidents or send complaints to the Barcelona City Council for resolution. Through IRIS, citizens can send information and queries, as well as complaints and suggestions for improvement. In this process, the citizen who reports the incident has to classify it using a tree of topics offered through the computer application. This classification is important because it is used to direct the incident directly to the responsible department, thus speeding up the response process. Errors in the thematic classification cause inadequate responses and delays in the resolution of incidents, thus affecting the quality of the service offered.

As part of the IRIS service update project, a module called MARIO has been developed, based on machine learning algorithms to simplify the incident classification process for citizens. From the analysis of the free text describing the incident, MARIO suggests to the citizen the most likely categories where the incident fits because he/she chooses the most appropriate category. MARIO, which is currently being tested, minimizes the error rate in the initial classification of incidents by greatly reducing manual reclassification processes. Previously, 50% of the communications made needed to be reassigned; now, with MARIO, a hit rate of over 85% is being achieved.

Budget: Not disclosed