Page 8 - July- August 2018

STATEWIDE
How Smart is Your City?
Cities across the U.S. are scrambling
to play catch-up to those that have
already created a unified message and
plan for the continuous integration and
growth of technology. In Tennessee,
Chattanooga is leading the way as the
first “Gig City” in the U.S. Memphis,
Nashville, Knoxville, Morristown, and
others are introducing data-driven tools
into the day-to-day operations in their
Public Works Departments.
“In 10 years, this is going to be a
non-issue. That if you’re not a smart
city, then it insinuates you’re a dumb
city,” Mayor of the City of Lafayette,
Louisiana Joel Robideaux said in his
opening remarks at the spring Smart
Cities Connect Conference in Kansas
City, Missouri. “We are a smarter city.
Everyone’s going to need to be one. The
millennials are going to vote with their
feet, and they are going to go where
they want to live, work, and play.”
So, if you don’t currently think of
yourself as a Smart City, maybe it’s time public support for services that people
to evaluate your digital infrastructure.
Defining Your City as a Smart City
In March, over 1,700 people attended
the third annual Smart Cities Connect
Conference. Representatives from
academic institutions, over 125 high-
tech corporate sponsors, and more than
400 employees from municipalities
large and small, counties, and regions
participated in the event.
The phrase “Smart City” is open to
multiple interpretations but has become
the umbrella term for any technology
and electronic data collection that
helps city officials manage assets and
resources efficiently. Monitoring what
is happening in the city while indirectly Director of Public Works for Kansas
interacting with both the community
and the city infrastructure allows for
greater communication and connection
with residents. The integration of
information from power plants, water
supply networks, waste management,
law enforcement, hospitals, and
other community services can be
used to optimize the efficiency of city
operations, enhancing the quality
of services while reducing costs and
8 TPW July/August 2018
consumption.
David Graham, Deputy Chief
Operating Officer with the City of San
Diego, said, “It’s all practical at the end departments in Public Works to see
of the day. What does it mean to be
doing ‘Smart Cities’ in the real world?
Pilots, one-offs, vendors, academics,
risk-taking, and innovation and at the
same time trying to convince taxpayers
to pay for the cool stuff we really
want to do.” The real transformation
of our communities will happen
when we connect every single piece
of infrastructure and make it more
intelligent. He said, “Data is the new
bacon.”
The Invisible Challenge
The real challenge of persuading the
public to upgrade basic infrastructure
is that it is hard for citizens to
appreciate the investment when most
infrastructure is generally not visible.
It’s difficult to call attention and get
take for granted unless they are missing.
Dominie Garcia, Smart Cities
Program Lead for Battelle, said, “Smart
lighting is the ‘gateway drug’ to Smart
Cities – everyone understands the value.
It’s a really great first entry.”
After lighting, it is apparent that
each city takes a unique path based on
pain points and leadership support.
However, having a data-driven culture
is necessary on the journey toward
being a Smart City.
Predicting Potholes
“We started with the problem the
city already had,” said Sherry McIntyre,
City, Missouri. “We have a lot of freeze/
thaws in Kansas City. That’s a detriment
to pavement. Predictive models helped
us decide where to dedicate our
resources.” By using data on pavement
conditions and historical weather data,
the Public Works Department was
essentially able to predict potholes and
support a three- to five-year pavement
rehabilitation plan. The results now
translate into how the road maintenance
staff is deployed.
By Molly Gilbert
To help develop the data-driven
culture in Kansas City, their
technology partner assigned company
representatives to shadow various
how data could be generated and
used to benefit them, as well as other
departments.
McIntyre said, “We asked, ‘What’s
our end goal for the results?’ to help
identify the problem and how this
problem could be moved forward.
How can we take this data and use it
for implementation for our different
perspectives?”
Secure, High-Capacity, Low-Latency
Connectivity
Collecting the data is a monumental
task alone, not to mention analyzing
it, and then implementing strategic
decisions. Knowing that every Public
Works Department is trying to do
more with less is what motivates the
adoption of resource-saving technology.
However, the issue that continues to
resurface for all cities endeavoring on
Smart City initiatives is the concern for
security and privacy.
Some cities use an algorithm to avoid
data being seen by human eyes, others
have open data policies, and still others
have policies against sharing any data.
There are many models in place that can
serve as examples, but regardless of the
choice every Smart City needs secure,
high-capacity, low-latency connectivity.
“Data is the end product. Some kind
of governance and standardization
would help. The challenge we are
facing is aging infrastructure. From
the application to the data layer, we
are setting the pace for the future.
It’s important to introduce standards
right from the RFP,” said Girish
Ramachandran, Chief Technology
Architect Innovation and Information
Management for the City of Dallas,
Texas.
Digital Divide
In addition to being good stewards of
limited resources, our cities are faced
with another harsh reality. “There’s