Data is vital to make Cities smarter. Data is vital to making Homes smarter.
Notice how human activity is dynamic and requires real time monitoring to manage energy efficiency. Human activity mainly requires energy consumption, often constantly 24/7, both within the home and within cities.
VEHICLES ARE PART OF A SMART CITY, BUT…
Bennett said transportation with connected cars and busses is cool, but “we aren’t smart yet.” “We won’t be smart until we get the data from the cars and actually use it to make decisions,” said Bennett.
“The key to the smart city is not all this stuff, but how we use it,” he said.
Vehicles will be part of the smart city equation, but the real problem is getting people to jobs. Data will have to solve that issue.
Franklin-Hodge said transportation requires “a lot less technologists and more social scientists.”
“There are real questions about how transportation will work with autonomous automobiles,” said Franklin-Hodge. He said ride sharing, car ownership and using space devoted to storing autos are all issues that will reshape the smart city.
He added that cities need to think big about vehicles and think more in terms of mobility. Perhaps cities should prepare for autonomous vehicles and models where auto ownership doesn’t exist. “There are a lot of things we don’t know,” said Franklin-Hodge.
DATA IS THE CURRENCY OF THE SMART CITY
Dominick Tribone, customer experience lead for Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, said on a panel that his group is using information from ridership and transactions to enhance services. But there are limitations. Tribone noted that the MBTA knows when someone checks in to the system, but has to infer when that person gets off.
“We want to get to real-time trip planning,” said Tribone.
Meanwhile, Paul Comfort, CEO, Maryland Transit Administration (MTA), said his group is revamping routes to ease congestion in Baltimore with a hub-and-spoke system. Technologies will be used to hold the light green for busses and align connections between bus and trains.
“We collected two years of data on the transportation system, where the jobs are and where people are really going,” said Comfort. “We’re removing 1,000 stops from our system because people weren’t using them. Data is helping us do that.”
Also read about a European view of smart cities
Leave a Reply