Calls for service

About calls for service

Boston residents can ask the city for various services, such as street light or pothole repairs. You can learn when those requests, and many others, are made near you in this section of EveryBlock.

Requests are made at the Mayor's 24 Hour Constituent Service page or by calling the mayor's hotline at (617) 635-4500.

Each report includes the request's location, the date and time it was made, the type of request (abandoned vehicle, street cleaning, sign repair, etc.), the city division that will handle the request and the request's status — either Open or Closed. See more about request statuses below.

Source

The data comes from Boston's GIS Data Hub. The city adds new service calls daily, and we at EveryBlock look for new reports each day as well.

What else should I know about service requests?

Because of the way we at EveryBlock collect data from the city, some requests that appear as open are closed. Status changes are only available in the data we at EveryBlock collect for about a week. For older requests, a status of Open might no longer be accurate. This is noted on all records with an open status that are more than a week old.

If you want to check the current status of an older request, select the Mayor's Hotline icon in the GIS Data Hub. You can search by date and for the "Service Request Reason" — what we call City division on EveryBlock — and sort by location and see whether the request is open or closed.

Also, residents can check the status of requests they have made on the city's Track My Service Request page.

Note that requests are considered closed when cases not on city property (e.g. a state roadway) have been forwarded to the appropriate agency. Finally, some requests are made by city employees and not by residents.

The city offers the following disclaimer about the calls for service data.

"Please note this web page is a public resource for general information. The City of Boston makes no claims, no representations, and no warranties, expressed or implied, concerning the validity (expressed or implied), timeliness, or the accuracy of the GIS data and GIS data products furnished by the City, including the implied validity of any uses of such data. The use of this data, in any such manner, shall not supersede any federal, state or local laws or regulations."