Create your survey

Create your survey

Create your survey

How to create citizen survey about road maintenance

Adam Sabla - Image Avatar

Adam Sabla

·

Aug 22, 2025

Create your survey

This article will guide you through how to create a citizen survey about road maintenance that delivers actionable insights. We’ll show you how Specific can help you build a conversational survey in seconds—no survey experience needed.

Steps to create a survey for citizens about road maintenance

If you want to save time, just generate a survey with Specific right now. Here’s how simple it is:

  1. Tell what survey you want.

  2. Done.

You don’t even need to keep reading to get answers. AI creates a well-structured survey using expert knowledge, and will chat with respondents—asking smart followup questions for you. That means you always get deeper, richer insights from citizens with almost zero effort. Feel free to start from scratch with a semantic survey here if you want more control.

Why a citizen survey on road maintenance matters

It’s easy to overlook the impact road maintenance has on daily life—until a pothole ruins your morning. Running regular citizen surveys ensures services match what the community expects and points you to the real issues slowing people down.

Grounding your survey work in data pays off: in a recent study, 39% of respondents called road maintenance the most important local authority service. If you’re not running these, you’re missing out on discovering what truly matters to nearly half your community, and leaving public frustration unaddressed. [1]

Citizen feedback isn’t just about venting—community involvement can turn into action. In India, when citizens were engaged in monitoring road projects, contractors stepped up their accountability and locals felt genuine ownership of infrastructure. [2] Ignoring this kind of engagement means missing a golden chance to build trust and deliver visible improvements.

Bottom line: if you overlook citizen opinion, you risk prioritizing the wrong repairs, wasting resources, or losing public confidence. Road maintenance is a shared responsibility; getting actual feedback is essential for smarter, more effective service.

What makes a good survey on road maintenance

A strong survey on road maintenance for citizens uses clear, unbiased questions. That means describing issues and solutions in neutral terms, so you’re not leading people or making them guess. Always keep accessibility in mind—every question should be easy to understand and answer. [3]

Conversational tone helps—it’s less intimidating than a formal questionnaire and encourages honest, thoughtful answers. Specific makes this easy by using natural chat-based interactions instead of boring form fields.

Bad practices

Good practices

Vague or double-barreled questions

One idea per question, specific language

Leading statements (“Don’t you think…?”)

Neutral phrasing (“How satisfied are you with…?”)

Too many required fields

Short, focused, and essential questions

The ultimate proof your survey is working: both quantity and quality of responses are high. That means lots of completed surveys, and answers that actually make sense. If you’re not seeing this, rethink your question design or survey format.

Question types and examples for citizen surveys about road maintenance

The best citizen survey surfaces both measurable data and rich feedback. Incorporating both quantitative and qualitative questions achieves a balanced perspective. [4] Here’s how to do it:

Open-ended questions deliver in-depth insights and let citizens voice concerns in their own words. Use them when you want context or discover new topics you hadn’t considered. For example:

  • What’s the biggest challenge you face with road maintenance in your area?

  • How has recent roadwork affected your daily commute?

Single-select multiple-choice questions are fast to answer and make it easy to compare results across respondents. Use them for quantifiable issues or to track trends over time. For example:

How would you rate the current quality of road surfaces near your home?

  • Very poor

  • Poor

  • Good

  • Excellent

NPS (Net Promoter Score) question measures advocacy. Use it to benchmark citizen sentiment or track change after a maintenance intervention. You can instantly generate a NPS survey for this topic and audience. For example:

How likely are you to recommend your local authority's road maintenance services to a neighbor or friend? (0 = Not at all likely, 10 = Extremely likely)

Followup questions to uncover "the why" are crucial when you want to dig deeper into responses—especially if someone leaves a vague answer. For example:

  • Why did you rate road maintenance quality as “poor”?

  • Can you describe a specific situation where the service let you down?

If you want even more ideas, tips, and best practices, see this article on composing the best questions for citizen road maintenance surveys.

What is a conversational survey

A conversational survey feels like a smart two-way chat, not a stale online form. It guides respondents with context-aware questions and real-time feedback, making it easy (and even enjoyable) to share their views. Traditional survey creation means building every question and branch yourself—tedious and limiting. With AI, you simply describe your goal and get a complete, expert-level survey in seconds, fine-tuned for engagement and clarity.

Manual Survey

AI-generated Survey

Manual question writing

Prompt-based creation

Linear, impersonal

Conversational, adaptive, dynamic

Static, no followups

Real-time followup probing

Why use AI for citizen surveys? With AI (and especially Specific), you do less and get more: better engagement, smarter followup, richer insights, all in a format that feels familiar (like messaging apps). Search for AI survey example or generative survey—the result is always the same: a more approachable feedback process, for both the creator and the respondent.

Specific is recognized for delivering best-in-class conversational survey experiences, removing traditional survey barriers and making it easier to act on public feedback. Want to see step-by-step instructions? Check out how to create and analyze citizen road maintenance surveys.

The power of follow-up questions

Anyone who’s ever run a “check-the-box” form survey knows: answers are often too short or unclear. That’s where automated, real-time followup questions shine. Learn more about automatic AI follow-up questions (here). When every answer gets a smart, targeted followup, the quality of insights skyrockets—without having to hunt respondents down via email for clarification.

  • Citizen: “The roads in my neighborhood need work.”

  • AI follow-up: “Can you point to a specific place or issue that concerns you most?”

How many followups to ask? In most cases, two or three context-aware followups are enough to get to the root of the problem. Specific lets you dial this up or down, and automatically moves to the next question once you've collected actionable detail.

This makes it a conversational survey—it doesn’t feel like a cold questionnaire; it feels like a natural, guided interview.

AI survey analysis and response summary are also just a click away. Specific lets you analyze even long, messy open-ended answers at scale. If you want to know how that works, check out the AI survey response analysis feature here or read this step-by-step guide to AI analysis for citizen road maintenance surveys.

Automated, dynamic followups are a new concept for a lot of people. Try generating a conversational survey and see how clear, in-depth feedback transforms your understanding.

See this road maintenance survey example now

Your citizens are ready to talk—tap into honest, actionable feedback in minutes with a conversational AI survey. Go further than basic questionnaires: automated follow-ups and smart analysis give you a real advantage.

Create your survey

Try it out. It's fun!

Sources

  1. irishtimes.com. 39% of respondents considered road maintenance most important local authority service.

  2. blogs.worldbank.org. Engaging community in monitoring road projects—India case study.

  3. newsroom.delib.net. Survey design best practices for public engagement.

  4. mdpi.com. Citizen-reported road hazards and the impact on maintenance efficiency and safety measures.

Adam Sabla - Image Avatar

Adam Sabla

Adam Sabla is an entrepreneur with experience building startups that serve over 1M customers, including Disney, Netflix, and BBC, with a strong passion for automation.

Adam Sabla

Adam Sabla is an entrepreneur with experience building startups that serve over 1M customers, including Disney, Netflix, and BBC, with a strong passion for automation.

Adam Sabla

Adam Sabla is an entrepreneur with experience building startups that serve over 1M customers, including Disney, Netflix, and BBC, with a strong passion for automation.