Cambridge Non-Emergency Service Requests and Work Orders

Commonwealth Connect provides a public record of non-emergency service requests submitted by Cambridge residents and city staff. The dataset includes tickets for issues like potholes, graffiti, and unshoveled sidewalks, with fields for location, status, and category. It is published by the City of Cambridge and was last updated in April 2026.

Use Cases

• Predict ticket_status using features like issue_category, cambridge_neighborhoods, and time elapsed from ticket_created_date_time to ticket_closed_date_time.
• Analyze spatial patterns of issue_type reports by clustering lat and lng coordinates across Police Neighborhood Regions.
• Model the time-to-resolution for different issue_description texts using ticket_created_date_time and ticket_closed_date_time.
• Identify recurring address locations for specific service requests like graffiti or potholes to prioritize maintenance.

Strengths

• Contains over 20 specific data columns including geospatial coordinates (lat, lng), timestamps, and categorical classifications.
• Integrates with three historical datasets for longitudinal analysis of pothole, graffiti, and sidewalk complaints.

Limitations

• Excludes all service requests that originated as internal work orders, creating a partial public view.
• Sample size and total row count are unknown, making it difficult to assess statistical power.
• Potential for label inconsistency if tickets change between public and internal status.

Provenance

Source

City of Cambridge, data.cambridgema.gov.

Collection Method

Submitted via the Commonwealth Connect (SeeClickFix Open311) application by the public and city staff.

Freshness

Updated to April 2026, indicating active maintenance.

Geography

City of Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, with zipcode and neighborhood fields.