Wondering how the Internet of Things can deliver valuable benefits in your neighborhoods and downtowns? Then don't miss the new white paper the Council produced with Microsoft; it's loaded with examples of IoT in action in cities around the world. You can read a brief excerpt from 5 ways IoT Improves Customer Service and Benefits Your Citizens below -- then click the link to download your copy.
The benefits of IoT get exponentially greater when cities combine mobile technologies with fast wireless connectivity, cloud computing, real-time analytics and predictive analytics. The result: increased efficiencies and remarkable insights from the data that low-cost sensors and other Internet of Things devices provide.
Take a quick look at a few examples from around the world.
Reducing congestion and costs with electric car sharing in Paris
Thanks to the sharing economy, living in urban areas today doesn’t require owning so many things. For example, Autolib is an electric car-sharing program established by the city of Paris and 46 surrounding municipalities to relieve traffic congestion, reduce noise and air pollution and provide people with more flexible transit options. The intelligent system provides connectivity between the in-car system, registration and rental kiosks, charging stations and a central management system. By using Autolib, former car owners in France have cut their transportation costs by approximately 90% annually.
Helping citizens feel safer in Eindhoven
The city of Eindhoven in the Netherlands, working with Council Associate Partner Intel, Atos and others, launched a data-driven pilot dubbed CityPulse to manage a long, vibrant street in the city’s clubbing district that attracts as many as 20,000 visitors every weekend.
As Atos explains the project: “Capturing data from a range of existing sources including visitor numbers and sound levels, this ‘on the ground’ information is combined with data gathered from social media sources to create a powerful picture of the street and help authorities better forecast and react to situations and de-escalate them before they develop.”
Ensuring a smart energy future in Seattle
In an effort to deliver the most cost-effective and environmentally friendly way to meet its growing energy needs, the city of Seattle worked with Council Lead Partner Microsoft, Accenture, its local electric utility and a local nonprofit to create a High Performance Building Program that aims to reduce power usage in downtown commercial buildings by up to 25%. It relies on software and cloud services to gain deeper insight from data generated by building management systems, sensors, controls and meters.
Those are just a few of the benefits the Internet of Things is delivering in cities today. Click here to download the white paper to learn about additional benefits – including how IoT helps streamline government operations, provides insights that improve service delivery and enables better citizen engagement.
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