A few things the Symbol Research team are reading. Complex Insight is curated by Phillip Trotter (www.linkedin.com/in/phillip-trotter) from Symbol Research
The goal of the present thematic series is to showcase some of the most relevant contributions submitted to the ‘Telecom Italia Big Data Challenge 2014’ and to provide a discussion venue about recent advances in the appplication of mobile phone and social media data to the study of individual and collective behaviors. Particular attention is devoted to data-driven studies aimed at understanding city dynamics. These studies include: modeling individual and collective traffic patterns and automatically identifying areas with traffic congestion, creating high-resolution population estimates for Milan inhabitants, clustering urban dynamics of migrants and visitors traveling to a city for business or tourism, and investigating the relationship between urban communication and urban happiness.
Making big data work: smart, sustainable, and safe cities Bruno Lepri, Fabrizio Antonelli, Fabio Pianesi and Alex Pentland
Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group (blog) New Louisville Open Data Policy Insists Open By Default is the Future Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group (blog) On Tuesday, October 15, 2013, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer announced the signing of an open...
Phillip Trotter's insight:
Interesting to see cities beginning to adopt open data policies as default. Recent open data competitions in places like New York are helping create awareness of the possibilities of using openly available data, mobile etc for innovative apps and improved city planning and governance. Looking forward to see what Louisville's decision generates.
‘Smart cities’ is a term that has gained traction in academia, business and government to describe cities that, on the one hand, are increasingly composed of and monitored by pervasive and ubiquitous computing and, on the other, whose economy and governance is being driven by innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship, enacted by smart people. This paper focuses on the former and how cities are being instrumented with digital devices and infrastructure that produce ‘big data’ which enable real-time analysis of city life, new modes of technocratic urban governance, and a re-imagining of cities. The paper details a number of projects that seek to produce a real-time analysis of the city and provides a critical reflection on the implications of big data and smart urbanism.
The term ‘smart city’ has been variously defined within the literature, but can broadly be divided into two distinct but related understandings as to what makes a city ‘smart’. On the one hand, the notion of a ‘smart city’ refers to the increasing extent to which urban places are composed of ‘everyware’ (Greenfield 2006); that is, pervasive and ubiquitous computing and digitally instrumented devices built into the very fabric of urban environments (e.g., fixed and wireless telecoms networks, digitally controlled utility services and transport infrastructure, sensor and camera networks, building management systems, and so on) that are used to monitor, manage and regulate city flows and processes, often in real-time, and mobile computing (e.g., smart phones) used by many urban citizens to engage with and navigate the city which themselves produce data about their users (such as location and activity). Connecting up, integrating and analysing the information produced by these various forms of everyware, it is argued, provides a more cohesive and smart understanding of the city that enhances efficiency and sustainability (Hancke et al., 2013, Townsend 2013) and provides rich seams of data that can used to better depict, model and predict urban processes and simulate the likely outcomes of future urban development (Schaffers et al., 2011; Batty et al., 2012). Everyware thus works to make a city knowable and controllable in new, more fine-grained, dynamic and interconnected ways that “improve[s] the performance and delivery of public services while supporting access and participation” (Allwinkle and Cruickshank 2011: 2). It also provides the supporting infrastructure for business activity and growth and stimulates new forms of entrepreneurship, especially with respect to the service and knowledge economy.
A new online mapping tool wants to make better urban planning by comparing a standardized map experience.
Phillip Trotter's insight:
Launched at ESRI's user conference the urban observatory enables cities to upload data and compare structural organisation, traffic, landuse, housing density, open space distribution and other variables. The gigaom article explains the aims and includes a video of Jack Dangermond and Richard Saul Wurman who jointly launched the venture.
Tom Vander Ark is an education advocate, advisor, and author of Getting Smart: How Personal Digital Learning is Changing the World. Tom is Founder and Executive Editor of Getting Smart and a partner in Learn Capital.
Phillip Trotter's insight:
Tom Vander Ark makes 7 observations on early smart city adoption. Worth a quick read.
Michael P. Flowers is the Director of both New York City's Policy and Strategic Planning Analytics Team, which has been leading the charge on data analytics ...
Phillip Trotter's insight:
Good presentation on how New York City use data science and analytics to effectively allocate resources.
After a successful 2012 competition which attracted 1,519 entries from 70 countries, Citymart is once again looking to award prizes to new urban ideas which aim to 'pilot the future'. 22 cities are...
Ventana Research has been researching and advocating operational intelligence for the past 10 years, but not always with that name.
Phillip Trotter's insight:
Interesting article by Tony Cosentino explaining the differences and different perpectives between Operational Intelligence and Big Data. Operational intelligence overlaps in many ways with big data. In technological terms, both deal with a diversity of data sources and data structures, both need to provide data in a timely manner, and both must deal with the exponential growth of data. Many early big data examples - such as log analyis to improve performance are arguably operational intelligence. Inside IT departments OI is largely focused on traditional system performance, however outside of IT and in other domains - for example City Management - operational intelligence may well be a more appropriate term than Big Data analytics. Worth reading.
Get into a cab and it's safe to assume the driver knows the ins, outs, shortcuts and potential traffic tie-ups between you and your destination. That kind of knowledge comes from years of experience, and IBM is taking a similar tact that blends real-time data and historical information into a new breed of traffic prediction.
IBM is testing the new traffic-management technology in a pilot program in Lyon, France, that’s designed to provide the city’s transportation engineers with “real-time decision support” so they can proactively reduce congestion. Called Decision Support System Optimizer (DSSO), the technology uses IBM’s Data Expansion Algorithm to combine old and new data to predict future traffic flow. Over time the system “learns” from successful outcomes to fine-tune future recommendations. Click on the title or image to learn more.
City of Ottawa's planned move to Drupal as an open-source system for its website also provides an opportunity to increase the number of data sets available in the catalogue, particularly those that change often, such as schedules, As a resul tthe citiy is planning another open-data contest as the city looks to improve the way it offers raw information that developers can use to make helpful apps. The city's website is expected to relaunch in November, and a gallery is to be added to help people find third-party apps created from municipal data, Click on the image or the title to learn more.
Video from the movies and shakers dinner on Smart Cities in London in September 2012. The inital talk and comments on smart cities repeat common info on smart cities and do not add much new to the discussion. However The panel discussion gets interesting after 30 minutes with Malcom Smith's comments regarding city challenges and disadvantage (33 mins) are worth noting. Stephane Quere's comments on combining IT, vision and governance and the importance of partnership between the city, city's leadership (mayjor) and private partnerships are essential to the success of smart city initiatives. David Partridge and Merrick Cockell comments on Manchester illustrate both the requirements and challenges and need for collaboration across local authorities. For me Adrian Wyatts's comments (39.30 onwards) on scale of the smart city opportunities and and key actions were the highlight. He believes the key points for smart cities orbit around:
- Land acquisition (mayors and local goverment important)
- Master planning and a move from form and design to sustainable code of practise,
- Construction: move to BIM/ modular building techniques based on just in time techniques from aerospace.
- Finance - short term needs long term view,
- Estate management - need to understand more than just a building but also food. water, waste, energy, social , transport etc.
At last week's Smart City World Expo in Barcelona, Jong-Sung Hwang, former CIO of the Seoul metropolitan government, informed of the city's attempt to capture real-time traffic data. For years the city invested millions of dollars in sensors embedded into the road infrastructure.
"But we failed again and again," said Hwang. "It cost a lot ... but the traffic information was not correct so could not be used." In 2012, however, the city's 25,000 taxis introduced a touchcard payment system using GPS technology, effectively giving Seoul the real-time traffic information it had long craved at a fraction of the cost. "A smart city can now use smart technology and solve problems without changing the city infrastructure", said Hwang.
Phillip Trotter's insight:
Good article on how smart cities can be implemented using technologies that are increasingly being deployed for related developments.
Some 3.5 billion people — half of humanity — now live in cities. Cities magnify human endeavours: they account for much more than half of humanity's pollution, energy consumption, crime and disease spread, while also incubating the lion's share of innovations, technology, art and entertainment. A sustainable, equitable future on our crowded planet will require fundamental changes in how cities operate. In Smart Cities, Anthony Townsend examines how information technology is shaping the development of 'smart' cities.
Information technology: Slouching towards utopia Melanie E. Moses Nature 502, 299–300 (17 October 2013) http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/502299a
Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia Anthony M. Townsend W. W. Norton: 2013. ISBN: 9780393082876
‘Smart cities’ is a term that has gained traction in academia, business and government to describe cities that, on the one hand, are increasingly composed of and monitored by pervasive and ubiquitous computing and, on the other, whose economy and governance is being driven by innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship, enacted by smart people. This paper focuses on the former and how cities are being instrumented with digital devices and infrastructure that produce ‘big data’ which enable real-time analysis of city life, new modes of technocratic urban governance, and a re-imagining of cities. The paper details a number of projects that seek to produce a real-time analysis of the city and provides a critical reflection on the implications of big data and smart urbanism.
The term ‘smart city’ has been variously defined within the literature, but can broadly be divided into two distinct but related understandings as to what makes a city ‘smart’. On the one hand, the notion of a ‘smart city’ refers to the increasing extent to which urban places are composed of ‘everyware’ (Greenfield 2006); that is, pervasive and ubiquitous computing and digitally instrumented devices built into the very fabric of urban environments (e.g., fixed and wireless telecoms networks, digitally controlled utility services and transport infrastructure, sensor and camera networks, building management systems, and so on) that are used to monitor, manage and regulate city flows and processes, often in real-time, and mobile computing (e.g., smart phones) used by many urban citizens to engage with and navigate the city which themselves produce data about their users (such as location and activity). Connecting up, integrating and analysing the information produced by these various forms of everyware, it is argued, provides a more cohesive and smart understanding of the city that enhances efficiency and sustainability (Hancke et al., 2013, Townsend 2013) and provides rich seams of data that can used to better depict, model and predict urban processes and simulate the likely outcomes of future urban development (Schaffers et al., 2011; Batty et al., 2012). Everyware thus works to make a city knowable and controllable in new, more fine-grained, dynamic and interconnected ways that “improve[s] the performance and delivery of public services while supporting access and participation” (Allwinkle and Cruickshank 2011: 2). It also provides the supporting infrastructure for business activity and growth and stimulates new forms of entrepreneurship, especially with respect to the service and knowledge economy.
Interventions of central, top-down planning are serious limitations to the possibility of modelling the dynamics of cities. An example is the city of Paris (France), which during the 19th century experienced large modifications supervised by a central authority, the `Haussmann period'. In this article, we report an empirical analysis of more than 200 years (1789-2010) of the evolution of the street network of Paris. We show that the usual network measures display a smooth behavior and that the most important quantitative signatures of central planning is the spatial reorganization of centrality and the modification of the block shape distribution. Such effects can only be obtained by structural modifications at a large-scale level, with the creation of new roads not constrained by the existing geometry. The evolution of a city thus seems to result from the superimposition of continuous, local growth processes and punctual changes operating at large spatial scales.
Self-organization versus top-down planning in the evolution of a city Marc Barthelemy, Patricia Bordin, Henri Berestycki, Maurizio Gribaudi
Toyota to roll out big data traffic service in Japan ZDNet Toyota Motor will use live traffic information from its vehicles on the road to offer a big data service targeted at local governments and businesses, and to help drivers during disasters.
Phillip Trotter's insight:
Interesting initiative being led by Toyota. Wonder if we will see other car manufacturers looking to offer similar services going forward...
The smart city market is at a tipping point. Having been led by IT industry stalwarts such as IBM and Cisco for the last five years, it needs a fresh injection of ideas to take it to the next level. Ovum believes that the developer community will add the required impetus. One of the key discussion points at Ovum’s recent Smart Cities in Europe 2012 event, which was held in conjunction with Imperial College London, was the impact that developers are having on the smart city market.
Phillip Trotter's insight:
Interesting insight from Ovum arguing that property developers rather than IT providers will drive the next stage of smart city evolution. A major factor in this is the IT industry cannot live with the 5–10 year ROI models inherent in smart cities, but the developer community can and are familair with using various financial instruments to finance long term projects that are alien to most of the IT world. In many respects I think property developers are the initial target market for smarter City IT products in the same way that property developers such as Taylor Woodrow and McAlpine drove building information modeling and object CAD systems in the 1990s.
It wasn’t too long ago that the term ‘Smart City’ was not on very many people’s radar screens, but recently, it has been more familiar, and people are understanding the concepts behind smart cities.
A smart city uses information combined with technology to improve quality of life, reduce environmental impact, and decrease energy demand. This list of the smartest cities on the planet takes those factors into consideration, as well as the ‘smart’ plans the city might have for the future...
Great find from Peter Jasperse's blog and an inspirational read for those interested in building a smarter cities and environments since these cities have already started along the journey.
Employer: Schneider Electric; Location: Nashville, TN, USA; Categories: EngineeringJob DescriptionIntro:About Schneider Electric:As a global specialist in energy management with operations in more than 100 countries, Schneider Electric offers...
Phillip Trotter's insight:
We do not usually post job notices here - but this is the first time I have seen a post explicitly for a Smart Cities Solution Architect. While this type of role has been around for a while in both utilities and local government, I thought it was interesting to see the terminology being adopted and the role scope so clearly defined.
China’s new city Ordos is regularly described as a “ghost town,” but the forces behind the city go beyond images of vacant towers. One of the fastest developing urban environments in China is the Ordos Municipality, located in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Established only ten years ago, Ordos has become a widely debated example of an economic and urban development that attempts to leapfrog the progressive stages of modernization. Although growth is largely fueled by local extractive industries, official municipal discourse portrays Ordos’s long-term development strategies as a model to be followed, not only in terms of economic growth. Ordos’s leaders also claim to embrace development in terms of better education, hygiene, social welfare, more ardent institutions for culture and innovation, and environmental sustainability. Despite these pronouncements, the international press has branded Ordos as evidence of China’s real estate bubble and a construction culture gone into overdrive. there appears to be more to the picture than the international press perspective. Click on the image or title to learn more.
There are natural parallels between the Smart Grid and smart cities in terms of concepts and deployments. Both rely on ICT technologies and M2M (machine to machine) communications applications to enable devices and systems to be remotely monitored...
Sharing knowledge and best practice on open data, internet of things and smart cities.. If you are tracking Smart City related developments then this is a great site for info, examples and updates. Click on the image or the title for more info.
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Interesting results of Telecom Italia's 2014 Bid Data Challenge - if smart cities are of interest - worth reading.