1001 Smart Cities
🇳🇱 Amsterdam

Signalen: Open-Source Public-Space Reporting Platform

🤖 AI-generated summary · ◆ 15 sourced claims · 🔎 Last verified

This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed below and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.

15 sourced claims on this page, none individually verified yet — turn on “Sources in the text” to see each one.

How this atlas is made · What “last verified” means · What “source-checked” means · The full record behind this page

✎ Corrected 5 Oct 2026 1 source added. What changed →

A classifier reads each complaint and routes it to a department. A year before it went live, the city's own audit office found that reports marked handled were not always actually resolved.

Outcome🔄 Ongoing
Evidence📊 Independent
what does this mean?The strongest source is an independent non-academic evaluation: an audit office, a government or EU review, or an NGO. It grades who did the looking — not how well the project went. All four grades →
Run byCity of Amsterdam
Scale🏙️ City-wide

Part of 1001 Smart Cities — 1,216 documented projects · 🏙️ 8 more in Amsterdam · 🪪 Digital government guide · 🏛️ Governance projects

Amsterdam's Signalen platform (meldingen.amsterdam.nl) lets residents report public-space problems — waste, cleanliness, nuisance, roads and street furniture — by web, app, phone, social media, e-mail or at a counter. The system went live in 2018 as Signalen Informatievoorziening Amsterdam, the same year the city put a 24/7 Action Service Centre behind it. Since July 2022 a classifier trained on 300,000 past reports (TF-IDF plus logistic regression, macro-weighted F1 0.88) reads the free text and routes it to a department; anything it places with less than 40% certainty goes to that centre for a person to categorise. The software is open source and other Dutch municipalities run it too.

Live 📅 since 2018 🤖 Uses AI

📊 Impact

The classifier reaches a macro-weighted F1 of 0.88, and the city records that W2V, CNN+LSTM and BERT were tried and performed worse; reports placed with under 40% certainty go to people. VNG, the association of Dutch municipalities, says the municipalities running it together serve about 3 million residents, and that some 2,800 officials process more than 800,000 reports a year with it. The only independent assessment is older than the classifier: in June 2021 the municipal audit office found that Amsterdam had received over 385,000 reports in 2020, around 88% more than in 2018, judged the handling partly effective, and reported 52% of complainants satisfied against an internal target of 70%. In May 2026 AT5/NH Nieuws reported, from city figures, that Amsterdam received just over half a million reports in 2025, about 7.5% more than in 2024.

🎓 Lesson

The classifier fixed the problem the city had measured, not the one its auditor had found. A year before the routing model went live, Rekenkamer Amsterdam reported that a considerable share of reports — urgent ones included — were not handled within the promised time, that reports marked handled were not always resolved in a result-oriented way, and that recurring problems such as rubbish beside the containers were tackled structurally only to a limited extent. None of that is a routing failure, and an F1 score cannot speak to any of it. No later independent assessment appears in this entry's sources; the city's own survey, reported in May 2026, still found just over half of reporters satisfied, the reasons most often given being that the city could act and did not, or left the work unfinished.

🏛️ GovernanceDigital governmentArtificial intelligenceCitizen participationPublic spaceOpen data

Sources

↗ Algoritmes.overheid.nl (Dutch national algorithm register, authority)Updated 21 April 2026Official transparency entry, last amended 21 April 2026: start date 2022-07, TF-IDF plus logistic regression, macro-weighted F1 0.88, 300,000 historical reports used for initial training with regular retraining on manual corrections, W2V/CNN+LSTM/BERT tried and found worse, and everything below 40% certainty routed to the Action Service Centre.
↗ VNG — Vereniging van Nederlandse GemeentenProject page for Signalen at the association of Dutch municipalities.
↗ GitHub — Amsterdam/signals (source repository published by the City of Amsterdam)Source repository for the Signalen platform, published by the City of Amsterdam.
↗ Rekenkamer Amsterdam (independent municipal audit office)Published 2 June 2021Governance report of 2 June 2021: over 385,000 reports in 2020, some 88% more than 2018; handling judged partly effective; a considerable share of urgent reports missed the promised deadline; reports marked handled were not always resolved in a result-oriented way; 52% of complainants satisfied against an internal target of 70%. It also records that the reporting system went live in 2018 alongside a 24/7 Action Service Centre, and that Amsterdam offers every reporting channel the other 48 benchmark municipalities offer between them.
↗ City of Amsterdam (authority)Official citizen-facing reporting page.
Show 1 more sourcesShow fewer
↗ NH Nieuws — Half miljoen meldingen over de openbare ruimte vorig jaar (20 May 2026)AT5/NH Nieuws report on city figures: just over 500,000 public-space reports in 2025, about 7.5% more than in 2024, more than a third about waste; the city's own survey found just over half of reporters satisfied.
Show your work What this page rests on and what it can’t tell you · all 15 claims with their sources · the forensic record

Evidence file · public beta 15 addressable claims, 6 source dossiers, one permanent baseline. The file is unreviewed — an AI-assisted structural migration, not a human or expert endorsement. Every revision keeps a permanent copy under revision history.

Inspect the claims, one by one — verbatim text, sources and caveats for all 15

The text below is copied verbatim from the published record. Each claim names the source dossiers that carry it; caveats stay attached to the claim they qualify.

Claim 1 clm-0b1c23bf076e3ed4 quantitative
The system went live in 2018 as Signalen Informatievoorziening Amsterdam, the same year the city put a 24/7 Action Service Centre behind it
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The audit office records that in 2018 the Action Service Centre began monitoring, handling and reporting back on public-space reports 24/7, and that the new reporting system Signalen Informatievoorziening Amsterdam (SIA) went live in the same year.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Rekenkamer Amsterdam (independent municipal audit office)
Claim 2 clm-fdd1165f1d9937e3 descriptive
by web, app, phone, social media, e-mail or at a counter
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The audit report lists the reporting channels and states that Amsterdam offers every channel that the other 48 municipalities in its benchmark offer between them.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Rekenkamer Amsterdam (independent municipal audit office)
Claim 3 clm-48190093f8f9e9b1 quantitative
Since July 2022 a classifier trained on 300,000 past reports (TF-IDF plus logistic regression, macro-weighted F1 0.88) reads the free text and routes it to a department
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The national algorithm register gives the start date as 2022-07 and describes TF-IDF word weighting followed by logistic regression, trained initially on 300,000 earlier reports, with a macro-weighted F1 score of 0.88.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Algoritmes.overheid.nl (Dutch national algorithm register, authority)
Claim 4 clm-9db979c1d7882382 quantitative
anything it places with less than 40% certainty goes to that centre for a person to categorise
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The register states that all reports assigned to a category with less than 40% certainty are forwarded to the Actie Service Centrum, where a human assessment follows.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Algoritmes.overheid.nl (Dutch national algorithm register, authority)
Claim 5 clm-d5b255488fe53ec7 descriptive
The software is open source and other Dutch municipalities run it too
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The collaboration's site describes Signalen as open-source software of, for and by Dutch municipalities; the national register carries near-identical algorithm descriptions from Meierijstad, Blaricum, Almere, Hilversum and Eemnes, each marked in use.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. VNG — Vereniging van Nederlandse Gemeenten
  2. Algoritmes.overheid.nl (Dutch national algorithm register, authority)
Claim 6 clm-3e4ed0b966fa12bf quantitative
the city records that W2V, CNN+LSTM and BERT were tried and performed worse
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The register states that other methods (W2V, CNN+LSTM, BERT) were also tried but proved to perform less well.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Algoritmes.overheid.nl (Dutch national algorithm register, authority)
Claim 7 clm-b119906881383292 quantitative
the municipalities running it together serve about 3 million residents, and that some 2,800 officials process more than 800,000 reports a year with it
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The collaboration's own site states that with Signalen they serve 3 million residents and process more than 800,000 reports a year with 2,800 officials.
Caveat
A self-reported total for the collaboration as a whole, not for Amsterdam alone.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. VNG — Vereniging van Nederlandse Gemeenten
Claim 8 clm-5ad1a78e070a455e quantitative
in June 2021 the municipal audit office found that Amsterdam had received over 385,000 reports in 2020, around 88% more than in 2018
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The audit report of 2 June 2021 states that Amsterdam received more than 385,000 public-space reports in 2020, a rise of some 88% on 2018.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Rekenkamer Amsterdam (independent municipal audit office)
Claim 9 clm-af91a78fcd016a62 quantitative
judged the handling partly effective, and reported 52% of complainants satisfied against an internal target of 70%
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The same report judges the handling of public-space reports partly effective and states that 52% of reporters are satisfied while 70% is the internal aim.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Rekenkamer Amsterdam (independent municipal audit office)
Claim 10 clm-e70d8ade06d274d2 descriptive
a considerable share of reports — urgent ones included — were not handled within the promised time
Published field
lesson · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The audit report states that a considerable share of the (urgent) reports is not handled within the promised deadline.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Rekenkamer Amsterdam (independent municipal audit office)
Claim 11 clm-b6ca3e9548d512e7 descriptive
that reports marked handled were not always resolved in a result-oriented way, and that recurring problems such as rubbish beside the containers were tackled structurally only to a limited extent
Published field
lesson · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The same summary states that reports with the status 'handled' are not always resolved in a result-oriented way and that the executive succeeds only to a limited extent in structurally solving recurring problems, giving waste beside the container as its example.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Rekenkamer Amsterdam (independent municipal audit office)
Claim 12 clm-240996b2cb2d1e55 descriptive
waste, cleanliness, nuisance, roads and street furniture
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The report lists the main 2025 categories: waste (more than a third), cleanliness of streets and squares, nuisance in public space, and roads, traffic and street furniture.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. NH Nieuws — Half miljoen meldingen over de openbare ruimte vorig jaar (20 May 2026)
Claim 13 clm-b431e9e1e14f6102 descriptive
VNG, the association of Dutch municipalities, says
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The figures appear on VNG's Signalen project page; VNG Realisatie and the Innovatie Kenniscentrum support the community.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. VNG — Vereniging van Nederlandse Gemeenten
Claim 14 clm-9af061d7ed17f7f3 quantitative
In May 2026 AT5/NH Nieuws reported, from city figures, that Amsterdam received just over half a million reports in 2025, about 7.5% more than in 2024
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
"In vergelijking met 2024 steeg het aantal meldingen dat werd gedaan met ongeveer 7,5 procent en kwam daardoor uit op net iets meer dan een half miljoen."
Caveat
A volume figure: more reports say nothing by themselves about whether problems were fixed.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. NH Nieuws — Half miljoen meldingen over de openbare ruimte vorig jaar (20 May 2026)
Claim 15 clm-f795dd439c6a4f55 quantitative
the city's own survey, reported in May 2026, still found just over half of reporters satisfied, the reasons most often given being that the city could act and did not, or left the work unfinished
Published field
lesson · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
"Uit dat eigen onderzoek van de gemeente komt naar voren dat net iets meer dan de helft van de mensen maar tevreden is ... Redenen die veel worden genoemd voor de ontevredenheid zijn dat de gemeente wel iets kan doen, maar dat niet doet en dat het werk niet af of goed is uitgevoerd."
Caveat
A press report of the city's own post-report survey; the published figure is 'just over half', not a percentage.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. NH Nieuws — Half miljoen meldingen over de openbare ruimte vorig jaar (20 May 2026)
Forensic record — source dossiers, gaps, hashes and the exact revision this page renders

This layer records what is known about each source, what is still missing, and the exact snapshot this page is rendering. A missing date, archive or hash stays visible as missing.

unreviewed Revision 2026-10-05-p4-quality-run effective 2026-10-05 · created 2026-10-05

Awaiting operator and domain-expert review; publication of this revision implies neither.

sha256:e2719cd9d2468cf265500e398987e60e2b43c85d2e7fe02c9f8614b5c7478aa6
Revision history → Permanent version link → Machine-readable record → Evidence Constitution →
15
of 15 claims mapped
6
source dossiers
2
publication dates recorded
0
archives linked
0
exact locators
0
content captures hashed

Governance facts carried by the record

Operator
City of Amsterdam
Actor types
city-government
Funding model
public
Funding description
Not recorded
Cost
Not recorded
Ownership
Not recorded
Decision rights
Not recorded
Exit conditions
Not recorded

6 source dossiers

Algoritmes.overheid.nl (Dutch national algorithm register, authority) algoritmes.overheid.nl · 4 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-6c21675d7275cd09
Publisher
Name not classified · algoritmes.overheid.nl
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
2026-04-21
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-10-05
Dossier created
2026-10-05
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Official transparency entry, last amended 21 April 2026: start date 2022-07, TF-IDF plus logistic regression, macro-weighted F1 0.88, 300,000 historical reports used for initial training with regular retraining on manual corrections, W2V/CNN+LSTM/BERT tried and found worse, and everything below 40% certainty routed to the Action Service Centre.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
VNG — Vereniging van Nederlandse Gemeenten vng.nl · 3 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-2e4c7d76c5cc6ed1
Publisher
Name not classified · vng.nl
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-10-05
Dossier created
2026-10-05
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Project page for Signalen at the association of Dutch municipalities.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
GitHub — Amsterdam/signals (source repository published by the City of Amsterdam) github.com · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-d2a10ba1f48299a6
Publisher
Name not classified · github.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-10-05
Dossier created
2026-10-05
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Source repository for the Signalen platform, published by the City of Amsterdam.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Rekenkamer Amsterdam (independent municipal audit office) publicaties.rekenkamer.amsterdam.nl · 6 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-942a289317663249
Publisher
Name not classified · publicaties.rekenkamer.amsterdam.nl
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2021-06-02
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-10-05
Dossier created
2026-10-05
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Governance report of 2 June 2021: over 385,000 reports in 2020, some 88% more than 2018; handling judged partly effective; a considerable share of urgent reports missed the promised deadline; reports marked handled were not always resolved in a result-oriented way; 52% of complainants satisfied against an internal target of 70%. It also records that the reporting system went live in 2018 alongside a 24/7 Action Service Centre, and that Amsterdam offers every reporting channel the other 48 benchmark municipalities offer between them.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
City of Amsterdam (authority) amsterdam.nl · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-659c8e05174dc662
Publisher
Name not classified · amsterdam.nl
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-10-05
Dossier created
2026-10-05
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Official citizen-facing reporting page.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
NH Nieuws — Half miljoen meldingen over de openbare ruimte vorig jaar (20 May 2026) nhnieuws.nl · 3 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-43880799b312a6fd
Publisher
Name not classified · nhnieuws.nl
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2026-05-20
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-10-05
Dossier created
2026-10-05
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

AT5/NH Nieuws report on city figures: just over 500,000 public-space reports in 2025, about 7.5% more than in 2024, more than a third about waste; the city's own survey found just over half of reporters satisfied.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Known limits of this file
  • Publisher names and source languages have not yet been classified; domains are recorded without guessing.
  • Existing source notes are descriptive locators, not page- or paragraph-exact citations.
  • A missing archive, publication date or content hash is shown as null rather than inferred.
  • The project-level evidence grade ranks the strongest source in the entry; it is not a truth score for every claim.

Continue exploring

Compare this project

🇳🇱 Amsterdam Algorithm Register · Amsterdam Signalen's classifier is documented in the national Algorithm Register that succeeded Amsterdam's own 2020 version. 🇺🇾 Por mi Barrio Citizen Reporting Platform · Montevideo Montevideo's NGO-run reporting app shut down in 2022; Amsterdam's municipal system has run continuously since 2018. 🇺🇸 CityScore Performance Dashboard · Boston Boston's CityScore aggregates performance into one dashboard; Signalen routes each individual report to a department.

Explore the wider context

🗺️ Your City's Problem Map Is Really a Map of Who Complains📖 Civic participation platform📖 Digital identity📖 Government super-app
📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Signalen: Open-Source Public-Space Reporting Platform” — Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/amsterdam-signalen-reporting/ (last verified 2026-10-05). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

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