City of Los Angeles Analytics 50 Submission

Business Challenge

The city’s challenge was to implement the Clean Streets initiative, an executive directive of Mayor Eric Garcetti, to put 5,000 more trash cans on Los Angeles’ streets, create a block-by-block cleanliness rating system, and deploy a new Clean Street Strike Team to target hotspots and improve the overall cleanliness of the city.

Analytics Solution

The City of Los Angeles developed CleanStat, a comprehensive street-by-street cleanliness assessment system. Modeled after LAPD’s CompStat, CleanStat provides quarterly, block-by-block assessments of the entire city to build data and identify trends in street cleanliness. The system uses dashcam video footage and GIS data to map, assess and grade the degree of cleanliness of each street, alley and sidewalk in the City of Los Angeles. In the quarterly assessments, the city’s Bureau of Sanitation drive all of L.A.’s public streets and alleys (traveling over 22,000 miles) and gave each block a “cleanliness score” from 1-3:

1. Clean
2. Somewhat clean
3. Not clean

These scores and the related formula are available to every Angeleno. The individual segment scores are then aggregated into operational grids used by the department to assess trends and deploy newly funded Clean Streets teams.

Impact

The data helps city leaders target additional resources to neighborhoods with the greatest need for cleanup, and ensure the overall cleanliness of Los Angeles. Of the 39,915 road segments scored in the baseline assessment, 61% were rated clean, 35% were rated somewhat clean, and 4% of total street segments were rated unclean.

By implementing a data-driven approach, the Bureau of Sanitation is now able to focus on key areas like:

• Clean routes to schools: Prioritizing cleanliness around key community assets like schools and parks, the city can focus services and ensure a safe and clean environment for children.
• Preventing illegal dumping: Analyzing trends, the city of Los Angeles can identify illegal dumping hotspots like freeway off-ramps, where enforcement tactics can be deployed to deter future occurrences.
• Deploying trash bins effectively: Identifying persistent areas of litter, the city can install new trash receptacles in areas where they are needed most.