Many cities could benefit in new ways from real-time streams of information on their streets and buildings. For example, during the Covid crisis, analysts in the US city of Chattanooga began analyzing traffic volumes and patterns to assess the potential tax impact of reduced commuting. "One of the things we've been doing during the pandemic is monitoring traffic, and when we saw a significant drop in traffic on many major arterials, we knew it was going to have an impact on our tax revenue," said Chattanooga Smart City Director Kevin Comstock said.
“As we started to see the traffic flow data coming back from Covid, the taxes started to come back.” One of the services being considered would help cities predict business fluctuations based on metrics derived from measuring traffic, he said. UART-модуль
Applying real-time data to city management was the topic of a panel discussion I recently had the opportunity to moderate, in which Comstock joined RanMarine CEO and founder Richard Hardiman and Seoul Robotics VP Business Development William Muller. Key themes explored include the value of real-time data in supporting new urban services, and the interconnectedness of data from a variety of sources, serving a range of agencies.
"From a city perspective, we're looking at these opportunities to introduce powerful smart systems," Comstock said. "At the end of the day, businesses want to get goods or deliver goods. The more reliable the sustainable system or delivery platform, the better off they are." We're only just getting started: Smart cities will see major advances not only in smart transportation in the coming years, but also in smart transportation. Significant progress will be made in the breadth of urban life and services. Improving health, energy and mobility are "key areas where smart cities can focus and make tangible improvements over the next five to 10 years," Comstock said.
While Comstock's initial efforts began in the field of transportation, he and his team realized that the traffic monitoring and transit systems they had deployed had broader applications across cities. "We're watching the city and its different dynamics as things evolve," he said. "How do we approach the problem from a different perspective? We're working with other agencies to look at the assets and data resources they already have and aggregate some of that information and look for trends or events to act on. One of the keys to being a smart city is Take the information at your fingertips and use it in a positive way."
For example, city agencies are developing lidar systems for vehicles to improve pedestrian safety. "We're also working with the police department and other departments to collect and aggregate data across the city to put together a road map and an overall understanding of our pain points and how we can help mitigate some of those issues. We've got a ton of technology at our disposal, The point is to apply them in some new way that hasn't been thought of yet." CAN-модуль
Hardiman added that hyperconnected smart cities under development are based on real-time data being publicly available and able to be shared between institutions and even cities. The key is "to have data at their fingertips so that decisions can be made. Whether it's on a big screen, where they can move things around, or on a laptop, I hope it makes it easier for city officials and harnesses the power of data entry effectively do their job."
Openness is critical to that vision, Mueller said. “Many different parties need to be able to access data, from connected vehicles to traffic systems to people looking at their phones on the street.” Also, part of this model is self-driving cars, he continued. Currently, they are most commonly found in "heavy industry, especially mining and similar industries, where the environment is now more suitable for the technology, but we see the same technology developed for these industries, especially 3D data from 3D LIDAR sensors and 3D Radar, will prove beneficial to the smart city industry. We believe this will eventually be one of the technologies needed to help these self-driving cars see further."