A Smarter City at Work

Take a closer look at any large city today and you’ll find another city pulsating within it, made up of interconnected systems of many different functions and activities.

Often invisible, and taken for granted, these incredible systems that undergird a city stretch beyond roads, utilities, and water supplies to give us the means to move around, maintain our environment, keep our streets safe, and generate new ideas.

And if we want to build a smarter planet — where a new level of intelligence is being infused into the systems and technologies that make everything work — there may be no better place to start than in our cities.

Take a look at what’s being built into cities around the world.

Stockholm, Singapore, Brisbane and London are discovering that traffic isn’t just a line of cars: it’s a web of connections.

These cities are infusing intelligence into their entire transportation systems — streets, bridges, signs, signals and tolls. And now they’re seeing significant drops in congestion and pollution.

Everyone knows good police work relies on good information.

Police in New York, Charleston, Memphis and other cities are using advanced analytics to access and analyze billions of records, evaluate and forecast crime patterns, and take action in real time.

The work of water relies heavily on the ability to monitor and understand vast amounts of data.

The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority is using analytics to predict how water is being used and improve service.

In city buildings, thousands of wireless sensors monitor everything from motion and temperature, to humidity, precipitation, occupancy and light.

By viewing buildings as living organisms, people can more easily identify problems and suggest cost-effective ways of making buildings healthier and more energy-efficient. 

City governments are streamlining access to information and processes, so that everything can be located through one easy access point.

As a result, citizens can get the most out of government services quickly and easily.

From city command centers, cities of all sizes can get an integrated view of information across city departments and agencies.

South Bend, Indiana is using a cloud-based Intelligent Operations Center from IBM to manage its water system, predict the potential overflow of hazardous wastewater, and make sense of massive amounts of critical data at a glance.

To make cities truly smarter, one needs to have a keen eye for the way cities work — how all the different parts function and interact.

The flow of traffic.

The rush and activities of people.

The blending of the old,

and the new.

And then let oneself think about all that a smarter city can be.

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