Citizens of Rome have an unlikely new weapon to fight against double-parked cars and vehicles obstructing sidewalks in their city: Twitter.
For a little over a month, Rome's municipal government has allowed citizens to flag and denounce cars that are illegally parked, by tweeting at the official Twitter account of local police. Since then, citizens have sent more than 1,100 tweets — often with photos — that call out illegally parked cars, and ask police to take action, Reuters reported.
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In addition to photos, citizens tweet the exact location of the cars, so police can intervene quickly.
@raffaeleclement @raffimodaffi @PLRomaCapitale in Via Emanuele Filiberto e' tutta #doppiafila: vista dal civico 231 pic.twitter.com/t6qVKsDguD
— Giuseppe Mazziotti (@gmazziotti) January 28, 2014
"At Via Emanuele Filiberto it's all double parking: This is the view from 231" says the tweet, above, which was published on Tuesday. Five hours later, police responded, announcing 22 fines.
Other times, however, police are not as effective.
@PLRomaCapitale @raffaeleclement @romafaschifo a v.le Trastevere 94 (h 11.50) sempre in attesa del bus e della legge pic.twitter.com/qj4tGPoIjT
— Riccardo Pennisi (@RiccardoPennisi) January 28, 2014
"At 94 Viale Trastevere (11:50 a.m.) always waiting for the bus and the law," Riccardo Pennisi tweeted sarcastically. This time, police responded a few hours later, saying it had failed to address the problem. Pennisi then tweeted back, "Okay. Maybe try coming a little earlier."
Traffic and illegal parking have always been a major problem in Rome, a city with weak public transportation — the city has 2.7 million people, but only two subway lines — and a big car and scooter culture. More than half of Rome's citizens use private vehicles to commute around the city, while only 25% use buses and the subway. The result is that Rome has a staggering ratio of 70 cars per 100 citizens, according to Italy's statistics institute.
Not only there are a lot of cars, but there is little space for them, so citizens often resort to creative — and illegal — ways to park. There were 2.2 million parking fines last year, according to Reuters. That's one of the reasons why Raffaele Clemente, Rome's chief of traffic police, launched the Twitter initiative.
Traffic cops have responded to 740 of the more than 1,100 alerts received so far, issuing hundreds of fines. A Rome city hall staff member responds to the alerts from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., local time, Monday through Friday.
Federico Formica, an Italian freelance journalist who's lived in Rome his entire life, said this is a good initiative that many citizens are happy about.
"Traffic cops are practically absent in Rome," he told Mashable. "There's traffic anarchy, and nobody does anything except in the center of the city."
Rome is not the first city to ask citizens to use Twitter to help local police. In Kenya, African administrative chief Francis Kariuki uses Twitter to crowdsource crime alerts. Police in Spain also have a large and successful social-media presence.
However, Romans already have an unofficial venue to complain about the city's parking situation via the popular "Roma Fa Schifo" (Roma Sucks) website. The blog publishes all kinds of news denouncing the city's degradation, from illegal landfills to dangerous bike lanes.
Disclosure: Federico Formica is the cousin of the author of this article.
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