The City of Barrie is located one hour and 15 minutes north of Toronto and is home to 153,000 residents.

To provide its residents with timely and relevant information, the city had originally created an app with another company, but their former developer was not supporting them. When the company stopped making updates, the app no longer provided relevant, current information for the city or its residents.

The city knew they needed a new company to redesign and build their app. They began looking for examples of other cities and municipalities apps that they liked. During their research, they came across the City of Hamilton’s mobile app, which we built for them.

Interested in what they saw, they contacted us. After showing them that our platform could meet all of their requirements and still fit their budget they agreed to work with us.

The app we built for the City of Barrie includes many of the same features other municipalities use, such as a calendar of events, information about garbage and recycling, the latest news from council and committees and public transit updates. The app also brings in websites so residents can find more detailed information.

To align with other city services and sites, we customized the app using Barrie’s own logos and branding.

They also wanted to include a 311 option so residents could easily report issues or a problem in the city. The 311 module is included as a button called “Report a Problem” and is categorized into different departments within the city, such as by-law violations, road maintenance concerns or non-emergency crimes.

When a resident clicks on a category it takes them to complete a form or in some cases to the city’s website, where they can log their complaint or concern with the proper department so their issue is resolved as quickly as possible. The app also uses targeted push notifications, which residents can sign up to receive based on their specific ward in the city.

The City of Barrie also opted to use our app link module. This module automatically connects to other apps in the stores or in some cases can automatically open them if the user has them downloaded on their phone.

For example, Barrie has partnered with Hotspot, a parking technology company, that allows people to pay for parking using their phones. By using Info Grove’s app link module, Hotspot is automatically connected to the city’s app making for a more streamlined experience.

If you are a municipality that is interested in creating an engaging and easy-to-use mobile app please contact us to learn more about Info Grove Municipalities.

Karim Mansour is an Inside Sales Representative at 14 Oranges, the creators of the Info Grove platform.