Application test Winter maintenance: Make money in the winter by taking care of the sidewalk

In Košice, the winter season was problematic every year. The city could not ensure the maintenance of all sidewalks and so some of them remained unmaintained, which was dangerous for the population. This year, the city decided to solve it in an unconventional way – it created the Winter Maintenance application, with which residents can adopt the sidewalk and maintain it during the winter season.

How to register and prepare for maintenance

Any Košiceian could participate, it was enough to register directly in the application and then adopt the sidewalk. It should be as close as possible to the user’s location so that the user can respond to calls quickly.

Fill in your personal data in the application and choose the section you will take care of during the winter. Each section is approximately 50 m². The application will then generate a contract for you, which must be signed within three days at the City of Košice. If you do not do this, your section will be able to be adopted by someone else.

Before the start of the season, Kosit delivered each user four 25 kg bags of sanding material. Yes, it seemed like an incredible amount to me too, but after five interventions I only had less than two bags left. Each user must provide the shovel or other aids himself.

It will not work without a reward

The work is, of course, financially rewarded. Each participant will receive a flat rate of 180 euros and then an additional 5 euros for each day when maintenance was required at least once. In the future, the city plans to reward individual sections with different amounts, depending on the complexity of the terrain.

The first part of the reward was paid to users in December – namely 100 euros from the promised flat fee. The rest of the lump sum, together with the rewards for individual interventions, will be paid in March and at the end of the season, respectively. In the contractual conditions, the city reserves the right to reduce the amount of the flat fee if the winter season is shortened. This year, the city has set a winter season from November 15, 2020 to March 15, 2021.

As winter maintenance takes place

When it is time to perform maintenance, you will receive an SMS from the city. You must then open the application and confirm that you have accepted the challenge. After confirmation, you must start maintenance within 4 hours at the latest.

After starting maintenance, it is necessary to document the current condition of your sidewalk. The application will prompt you to take at least two photos. Send them with the button and then you can start shoveling snow and sprinkling. When finished, the app will prompt you again to take two more photos of what your sidewalk looks like after maintenance.

After sending the photos, the request will disappear and in the Rewards tab you can check whether everything went well and that you will receive a reward for the day. In the My Profile section, you can also view the map that marks part of your sidewalk.

The application also allows you to perform voluntary maintenance. I have not used this option yet and I do not know whether the user will receive a financial reward in this case as well.

Check photos

The question is whether someone checks these photos and how. For older smartphones that have worse cameras, this can be a problem, especially if maintenance is required in the evening.

My smartphone can’t send photos and continue maintenance for some reason (custom ROM is probably to blame), so I use my mom’s more than five-year-old LG X Screen for maintenance. And he takes pictures blurly even during the day in good light conditions, not at night.

Residents responded to the Winter Maintenance application

The Winter Maintenance application has met with various responses. After the introduction of the application, several people were concerned and they were interested in who would be responsible for possible injuries to pedestrians on the sections. However, the mayor of the city said that the responsibility would remain with the city and not the resident who had adopted the sidewalk.

Viktor also had an unpleasant experience. In a post on Facebook, he writes that he met with a few comments during the maintenance. While one resident forbade him to sprinkle in front of their entrance, another wanted to know who allowed him to maintain their sidewalk and why the city did not pay for its maintenance.

Final rating

The user interface of the Winter maintenance application is simple and the application will clearly guide you through the steps you have to take during maintenance. The application works without problems (except for the problem of sending photos that my smartphone encountered) and I like the way the city of Košice solved the problem of unmaintained sidewalks.