Located in the beautiful Sonoran Desert, Scottsdale is an internationally recognized visitor destination and a thriving location for businesses of all kinds. Now, the high-performing city is looking to accelerate innovation and scale the use of technology to solve community challenges and improve people’s lives. The city plans to engage with the community around Sky Song, the ASU Scottsdale Innovation Center, to build an innovation hub. Scottsdale will explore innovative scoping, procurement and contracting processes that can scale workable solutions throughout the city.

” Our goal is to engage with the people of Scottsdale to gauge their interest in using technology to help solve community challenges and improve their lives,” explained Brent Stockwell, Assistant City Manager, city of Scottsdale. “We are looking forward to participating in the Smart City Readiness Challenge to accelerate our ability to scale smart city solutions throughout our community.”

Contact the Council for an invite to Scottsdale's Readiness Workshop on April 6

Using Citizen Engagement to Drive Innovation

Citizens are the eyes and ears of a city and often identify issues faster than a city’s own staff.  Their feedback is vital to helping understand which improvements to make not only to avoid problems but to enable growth and prosperity. Taking citizen engagement to the next level means putting tools and technology in place that enable a city to nurture this two-way street.

Yet, McKinsey & Company has pointed in a recent report how many cities become enamored with technology and implement projects for ‘technology’s sake.’ These projects start with much fanfare and press releases; but more than often flounder for lack of stakeholder support. Concomitantly, these technology projects often create a whole new set of problems on their own because of poor data governance (privacy) and no or little citizen engagement. Sidewalk Labs Quayside project in Toronto and the recent issue of camera surveillance in San Diego are examples.

Data about citizen engagement will drive projects

Scottsdale is determined to do this differently and with the year-long assistance of the Smart Cities Council will kick off a series of stakeholder engagements that will implement projects starting in the area surrounding the Sky Song Innovation District, that city residents agree meet their needs.

• The first such workshop is on April 6, 2022 at Scottsdale Stadium in Scottsdale.

• The following day, April 7, 2022 at Scottsdale Stadium we will have a follow up workshop on 5G, Broadband and IoT Applications and Funding sponsored by the Council’s partner Dense Networks. This workshop has leaders from Scottsdale, Tucson and Maricopa County sharing use cases, best practices and current initiatives.

Vision

Starting with the vision for the Sky Song Innovation District, Brent Stockwell, the Deputy City Manager for Scottsdale accompanied by partners in the project  will review the vision for Sky Song and how it is to be used both for Scottsdale and the other 24 cities in the Phoenix region as a model for citizen engagement and innovation.

Similar projects from other cities in the Collective (Phoenix’s 24 cities organization) including major initiatives for Broadband builds and funding, Noise abatement IoT project, SunCorridor Middle Mile.

Driving this year-long engagement Scottsdale will engage as follows:

• People and technology: Instead of planning for technology or business-model demonstrations, innovation districts can operate as a model where site-specific placemaking is in response to data about community engagement. Data about life-style characteristics of a community (outdoor recreation, arts and crafts, higher education or nightlife) can lead to transportation, built environment and community centered improvements that make a community resilient and improves its well-beings.
• Data and analytics: this type of approach - an innovation district as the epicenter of a city’s renaissance can be achieved with data and analytics. Using information learned from citizen engagement data and analytics, Scottsdale will explore use-cases and study existing successful projects for replication.

Using data about citizen engagement

Smart Cities Council  and its partners will review how data can be collected about citizen engagement from citizen activities that involve mobility and the built environment. Case studies about how sentiment, emotion and activity can be used to determine the level of citizen engagement and their needs.

What data best reflects citizen’s needs?

From a data and analytical perspective, what data is needed to improve outcomes? How can we measure human side of places? Is it sentiment? Is it engagement? Is it through mobility data or social media analysis?  Further, how can Scottsdale and other cities use this citizen engagement data to prioritize projects?

With data, mapping and scoping become key

Once data is understood, how can Scottsdale use that data to scope projects that meet that need. Using Smart Cities Activator, the Council’s online collaboration tool, which Scottsdale has access to during the year-long engagement - Scottsdale, the Smart Cities Council and its partners, along with other stakeholders’ map needs to solutions and then scope those solutions?

Scaling Solutions

With data about citizen needs and a mapping to solutions, now the question is how do you implement and scale? What are the processes based on procurement, implementation and finance that would scale solutions to meet citizen’s needs?

Finally - back to projects and citizen engagement

Cities with projects and experts meet in roundtable session to review how they could use each of the techniques discussed to implement and scale to meet citizen needs -

• What data about citizen engagement is needed for a specific project?
• How is it analyzed?
• How does that data help map to a solution?
• One mapped how can that solution be accelerated, scaled and replicated?

Partnering with Government of Canada

5 Year Anniversary with over 21 previous winners!

Launches February 15 - Get access to your Application here.

With over billions in US Federal Infrastructure Funding to be awarded in the next 4 years, you need all the help you can get to secure this funding and implement projects.

Here are three distinct reasons to apply for the US Readiness Challenge

1. Expert advice on scoping data and technology solutions for specific projects - which will accelerate funding.
2. Year-long online capability and project planning resources -which will engage all stakeholders.
3. Join an elite cohort of cities agree that helping all cities is as important as helping your city.

This is what previous Readiness Challenge Winners have said about the Readiness Program.

Specifically, Readiness Challenge Winners receive (at no cost):

• Year-long free access to Smart Cities Academy with the opportunities for all city staff to earn a Practitioner Certificate.
• An outcome-oriented Smart Cities Collaborative Engagement. Previous collaborations:
  • Nashville Mitigation of Urban Flooding
  • North Carolina Research Triangle Data Sharing for Mobility
  • Orange County Smart Building
•  Access to grant resources and project funding, including P3 opportunities.
• The prestige of being among an elite group of Challenge Winners.

Dakota Korth, Trade Commissioner from Consulate General of Canada in Detroit added “The Government of Canada has a strong interest in the ability of the smart cities sector to improve livability, workability, and sustainability. Canadian companies are highly active in this sector and are well-placed to contribute to the global advancement of technology that underlies the smart city concept. We are excited to work with the Smart Cities Council in extending our innovation solutions to US cities and in deepening the important relationship between our two countries.”

Let’s get started!
The 2022 Readiness Challenge is open to any US local, state or regional authority that represents local resident interests. Includes Metro Planning Organizations, Council of Governments, innovation districts, academic campuses, military bases, ports, harbors and airports.

Cities are encouraged to expand their applicant group to include as many local stakeholders as they can, such as nonprofits, academia and commercial interests.  Regionalize your efforts to have a greater impact on your residents.

The application only takes an hour to complete. The deadline for the first phase is March 31, 2022.

Request your application here.

The city of Scottsdale, AZ -Our First 2022 Readiness Challenge Winner

For immediate release

Washington, DC. – February 2, 2022 – Smart Cities Council, the sector’s largest coalition, today announced the ‘first’ winner of the 2022 Smart Cities Council Readiness Challenge. – City of Scottsdale, AZ, USA. A full list of Readiness Challenge Winners from the past five years can be found here.

To learn more about this project and participate go here.

Are you a city that wants to accelerate your projects? Apply to the current Readiness Challenge here.

Scottsdale Scaling Innovation

Located in the beautiful Sonoran Desert, Scottsdale is an internationally recognized visitor destination and a thriving location for businesses of all kinds. Now, the high-performing city is looking to accelerate innovation and scale the use of technology to solve community challenges and improve people’s lives. The city plans to engage with the community around SkySong, the ASU Scottsdale Innovation Center, to build an innovation hub. Scottsdale will explore innovative scoping, procurement and contracting processes that can scale workable solutions throughout the city.

”Our goal is to engage with the people of Scottsdale to gauge their interest in using technology to help solve community challenges and improve their lives,” explained Brent Stockwell, Assistant City Manager, city of Scottsdale. “We are looking forward to participating in the Smart City Readiness Challenge to accelerate our ability to scale smart city solutions throughout our community.”

Replicating

“The Council is excited to have this opportunity to develop a blueprint for scaling innovation with sound governance that will benefit Scottsdale and that other cities can use’ explained Philip Bane, Managing Director of the Smart Cities Council. ‘Scottsdale’s willingness to learn and share with other cities is a hallmark of our Readiness Program.’

 The Readiness Challenge will help Scottsdale build capacity over the next several months focusing on:

• Identifying technology solutions that meet the needs of city residents.
• Prioritize processes that accelerate the deployment of these solutions.
• Integrate sound governance practices (digital trust, scoping, procurement and contracting) into each process so that city residents can both be involved and trust outcomes.

The effort will involve several virtual sessions followed by ‘in-person’ workshops in Scottsdale on April 6-7.

“We are thrilled to select Scottsdale as a Readiness Challenge Winner,” said Connie Heath, Executive Director for City Engagement and program manager for the Readiness Challenge. “They have already made substantial progress in developing their vision, and we are excited about working hands-on with them.”

Scottsdale will receive a full year of expert, vendor-neutral mentoring, access to Smart Cities Activator, the world’s only online collaborative planning platform and an opportunity for city employees to receive a Smart Cities Practitioner Certificate at no cost.

Previous 2021 Smart Cities Council Winners

• Morrisville, NC applied to the Smart Cities Council for a grant to accelerate the reduction of traffic congestion in Wake County, NC. Morrisville applied in early 2021 and after a thorough review of its plans, was declared a Readiness Challenge Winner in the summer of 2021.  Morrisville had sought assistance as the number one complaint of its residents was ‘traffic congestion’ and data showed that Morrisville and other residents in the Raleigh metropolitan region drive more miles in their cars in any other metropolitan region in the US.

• Nashville showed immense courage in 2020, persisting through COVID and non-COVID crises in planning to mitigate the impact of urban flooding, all while passing a massive $1.5B transportation plan. Nashville intends, with the help of the Smart Cities Council and its global network of experts, to continue refining its plan to mitigate the impact of urban flooding and will deliver a roadmap for review by its leaders that can also be replicated by other cities.  
• Orange County showed its vision to integrate growth and sustainability by proposing a Smart & Healthy Building project that includes in its scope the County’s 530 buildings with plans to extend its work to the 11 other cities in the County, including Winter Park and Orlando. 
• Brisbane goal is to explore how innovation, technology and data can help accelerate the city’s progress towards achieving broader goals of livability, sustainability, and prosperity. The ability to collect accurate and timely data provides the foundations for the Brisbane City Council to make informed decisions. The significant geographic spread of the Brisbane Local Government Area means Council has thousands of kilometers of land and assets to manage, which in turn requires a sophisticated data collection plan. Brisbane’s City Council is in the process of implementing several initiatives to support the collection of operational and city data.

About the Smart Cities Council
The Smart Cities Council, the longest-running global smart cities ecosystem, was founded in 2012. The Council envisions a world where innovation, technology and data leverages smart, sustainable cities with high-quality living and high-quality jobs. The Smart Cities Council serves as an objective and neutral network for sharing knowledge

About the City of Scottsdale’s Smart City Initiative

Scottsdale’s Smart City Initiative is focused on combining traditional public infrastructure with technology to improve the quality of life of residents.

For more information: Connie Heath, Executive Director, City Engagement - connie.heath@smartcitiescouncil.com

Three Reasons to be Optimistic about the US Smart Cities Market in 2022

At a webinar on January 26 - Ruthbea Yesner from ICD, Ron Mester from Power Almanac and Chris Foreman from MarketPlace.City joined Philip Bane from the Smart Cities Council to review research and findings about how to engage with cities.  

See the webinar here.

First - COVID has accelerated the digital transformation of cities. Ruthbea Yesner of IDC provided insights about the lessons cities learned from COVID and their key requirements. This impact can be felt with widespread changes in attitudes and adoption of technologies from hybrid work in government, to virtual municipal experiences, to comfort levels with new technologies.  “Cities need to be prepared and respond quickly,” shares Ruthbea Yesner, IDC.

Second - Cities are eager to learn from other cities and are willing to engage. Ron Mesner from Power Almanac provided data about which social media channels to use, how to message and how to target.

Third - Cities have many different ways to procure solutions and Chris Foreman from MarketPlace.City discussed the key tactics for success. He talked about using references, finding partners and learning alternative ways to sell to cities outside of the request for proposal process.

Presentation slides are below. 

Definitions can be tricky, cautioned Adam Beck, executive director of Australia and New Zealand’s Smart Cities Council, in a Smart Cities Chronicles podcast (Episodes 2) because sometimes people can get distracted and caught up in the definition to the point that it distracts from the work being done. That was the case in the early 1990s with the nascent sustainability definition.  “We have decades of literature, research, case studies and examples of how to plan and design and build good cities – sustainable cities – that cut across a whole range of verticals, whether that be public transport, water or waste management,” Beck stressed.

The three things that make a smart city - 

• 'Cities' are any human community of any size and 'smart' can be technology, people and process.
• At the core of smart cities are people, and the human-centered needs of livability, workability and sustainability are at the core of every smart city program or project.
• Information and communication technology are core to technology deployment.

The three things that continue to block smart city progress -

• Smart cities can't overcome past poor planning. Example: over-building in locales vulnerable to natural disasters or building edifices to political vanity or for the sake of publicity that does not serve the needs of people.
• A smart city has to be more than technology. This seems self-evident, but the numerous cities that call themselves smart cities after deploying a pilot and living lab is depressing. This limited application ignores the key attributes of communication and information technology which is aggregation and scale (thus delivering more benefits to more city residents.) See the McKinsey&Company Report that provides research confirming that this flawed approach is a prevalent practice that needs changing.
• Information and communication technology won't overcome silos and a lack of innovation. For example - technology won’t solve a failure to share goals, budgets and data between and among city departments.

See a list of Readiness Challenge Winners here,

What are smart cities?

Imagine a world where innovation, technology and data leverage smart, sustainable cities with high-quality living and high-quality jobs. This is what smart cities aim to do. “A smart city is one that uses information and communication technology to enhance its livability, workability and sustainability,” said Adam Beck, during the podcast. That idea can be further simplified to “tech and data for good,” he said.

The concept of Smart cities started in 2012 with the Smart Cities Council's goal of delivering solutions for advancing the livability, workability, and sustainability of cities globally. To that end, it created a Smart Cities Readiness Guide – a 400-page resource – that is one of the world's first comprehensive handbooks.

What are those technology and data enablers that can be used to accelerate those desired outcomes? These will be different from one organization to the next, from one city and region to the next. But the agenda is outcomes-driven.

There are a plethora of case studies and examples of smart cities technology and data solutions that include saving people's lives, helping people alleviate poverty and homelessness, or lifting people up and creating opportunity.

In 2014, the British Standards Institution released a document called PAS 180 around smart cities vocabulary. And last year, the International Standards Organization released an international standard – ISO-37106:2021 – for guidance on establishing smart city operating models for sustainable communities.

Cities are the heartbeat

Cities are at the heart of the smart cities idea, Beck said, stressing that sometimes people feel that it's all about technology, but cities embody the systems and processes that encapsulate life.  The term “city” can sometimes be polarizing for rural areas and regions in Australia, but when it comes to smart cities, the idea of “city” can be quite small and apply to small towns and regional areas as well.

“Here in New Zealand, we have substantial populations and significant economic contribution coming from rural and regional areas, and they certainly need to be at the table and have an equal opportunity to embrace technology and data to help them advance their sustainability outcomes,” Beck said.

The smart city idea applies equally to projects and individual development sites, such as “smart buildings” and “smart precincts” that include horizontal infrastructures, such as road and rail initiatives. Indeed, agriculture technology, or Ag tech, has been a major catalyst for economic enhancement in Australia. And in New Zealand, the Internet of Things is powering a new wave of management of agricultural and rural operations.

Tech and data for good

Definitions can be tricky, cautioned Adam Beck in a Smart Cities Chronicles podcast, because sometimes people can get distracted and caught up in the definition to the point that it distracts from the work being done. That was the case in the early 1990s with the nascent sustainability definition. 

“I was very close to that agenda for about 15 years, both here in Australia, but also globally, when I was working in the private sector. And I saw what happened with the continual obsession with wanting to redefine sustainability,” Beck said, noting that there was a core resource and a moment in time when a working definition was established at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. The report that articulated that definition, the Brundtland Report, clearly stated what the idea of sustainability was and what it embraced.  But for the next 10 to 20 years, national governments and companies got caught up in continually redefining the idea, and precious time was lost as a result.

“I think we have been seeing a bit of that with smart cities over the past 24 months. Here in Australia, we're starting to see a lot of definitions come from different places,” he said, cautioning against getting distracted by redefining the idea of the smart city. “Tech and data for good” encapsulate the important ideas and is embraced by the Smart Cities Council, he said.

Different non-technology sectors or city building sectors are contributing to the smart cities dialogue, which is essential. But at the core of smart cities are people, and human-centered needs are at the core of every smart city, which includes ideas like the need for smart cities to be walkable.

Good cities are the starting point of course, and smart cities are not here to repair poor city planning of the past, he said, stressing that smart cities won’t repair suburban sprawl, which is resulting in obesity due to higher single-vehicle occupancy trips. “We have decades of literature, research, case studies and examples of how to plan and design and build good cities – sustainable cities – that cut across a whole range of verticals, whether that be public transport, water or waste management,” Beck stressed.  "We now have the opportunity to take it even further to supercharge the good outcomes that we're trying to achieve with cities and the services that we provide our citizens by using technology and data.”

Livability, workability and sustainability core values

Although technology and data have been around for a long time, the rate of change is accelerating to the point that it can be difficult to keep up with, so the idea of smart cities is making sure that “we were very clear on our outcomes.” This is where context comes in, because the smart city fails without context, and that's why the core values of “livability workability and sustainability” must be part of every smart city, and every city should be aspiring to outcomes such as livability and sustainability.

Smart cities have always been about people and a human-centered agenda whether that means technological solutions about mitigating flooding, waste management, or health verticals. “We now have the opportunity to embrace technology and data solutions that are meaningful to the organization investing in that approach,” and being clear on those core values of livability workability and sustainability will help accelerate those desired human-based outcomes.

For more information on the Smart Cities Council, or to tune into the Smart Cities Chronicles podcast, visit www.smartcitiescouncil.com.

RECAPPING Data Sharing for Mobility for North Carolina Research Triangle as a 2021 Readiness Challenge Winner

Morrisville, NC applied to the Smart Cities Council for a grant to accelerate the reduction of traffic congestion in Wake County, NC. Morrisville applied in early 2021 and after a thorough review of its plans, was declared a Readiness Challenge Winner in the summer of 2021.  Morrisville had sought assistance as the number one complaint of its residents was ‘traffic congestion’ and data showed that Morrisville and other residents in the Raleigh metropolitan region drive more miles in their cars in any other metropolitan region in the US.

See list at bottom of this article as to participants.

**Join our October Digital Twin Readiness Workshop in Orlando. Register here**

Session 4 'In-Person' - December 9, 2021 Readiness Workshop Summary

After an introduction from Jennifer Robinson, SAS's Director Local Government Solutions and Mayor TJ Cawley of Morrisville. The workshop participants discussed the following topics:

Importance of Multi-Modal. How to convince the public that intelligent mobility with its emphasis on multi-modal transport was just as important an investment as building and maintaining roads.

Data Maturity. How to start the data sharing process when each participant had different levels of data governance maturity, budgets and systems.

What did a intelligent mobility platform look like? Here we had -

• George Karrayanis from Honeywell educated participants about City Suite, Honeywell's platform, which is being used extensively as a data aggregation, integration and analysis platform throughout the world (at least seventy (70) cities.)
• Ton DeVries from Bentley talked about how roads are 'assets' just like buildings and can be visualized from a data perspective with Bentley's Digital Twins solutions.
• Lisa Brown from Johnson Controls reviewed Open Blue, its digital twins solution which aggregates and visualizes multiple data streams.

Specific use cases -

• Reducing traffic congestion with vehicle and infrastructure data was discussed by Jim Trogdon from SAS with the use of 'streaming connected vehicle data.'
• Jamie Cleveland from Duke Energy Sustainablity Solutions reviewed how video could be used to detect congestion patterns and allow cities to re-route traffic and/or upgrade infrastructure where most needed.
• Energy efficiency was addressed by George Reed from Siradel who showed the audience how Siradel's Digital Twins platform gathers APIs from different IoT networks, in order to act on and coordinate the city’s infrastructural and equipment performance, specifically energy usage.
• Reducing carbon emissions  was reviewed by Nate Breyer from Azuga, where he described a project for Oregon where Azuga's system tracked vehicle driving patterns and could be used to manage and potentially reduce congestion and emissions.
• Safety and preventing incidents can be enhanced by Oracle's analytics solution as discussed by Mark Zannoni from Oracle. For example, Oracle could identify “near misses” of accidents, leading to safer streets for pedestrians, bicyclists, and all motorists, whereas “near misses” are otherwise never recorded or inventoried.
• Economic development is a key benefit from traffic optimization as revealed by Natalia Summerville, also from SAS.
• Cybersecurity solutions were reviewed by Brian Wane and Kelby Price from XQ Messaging. Given that roads can be critical infrastructure, making them data collection platforms increases the risk of illegal penetration and misuse.

Data Life Cycle

The first afternoon session, led by Curt Savoie from IDC and Amber Cobb from RiOT focused on the data life cycle. The participants specifically reviewed the data life cycle -

• What data is available?
• How is it collected?
• How is it communicated?
• How is it analyzed?
• How is it protected?
• How is it archived?

Data Governance

The second afternoon session, led by Curt Savoie from IDC and Philip Bane from the Council. This session reviewed the different types of data sharing frameworks including data trusts.

Fourth Working Session: Roadmap for Data Sharing

• Data Maturity (assessment)
• Data Vocabulary (common language)
• Data Enterprise Catalog (what is available for sharing?)
• Data Ontology (what are we sharing)
• Data Capabilities (capacity and training)
• Data Governance (policy and legal)

Moving Forward

A final session was led by Rick Ralph, CIO of Morrisville and Adam Spillman, TJCOG about how the public participants could start a data-sharing process. It had been agreed that TJ COG would be a repository for the shared data, coordinating with the working group previously formed by the two MPO(s)

Following Sessions Were Virtual

Session 3 – November 10, 2021

Recording

• Philip Bane, SCC
• Teresa Tapia, Customer Success Manager StreetLight Data, Inc
• Noam Maital, CEO Waycare Technologies
• Carlos Rivero, Chief Data Officer Commonwealth of Virginia
• Bonnie Danahy CDO Wake County Government

Session 2 – October 27, 2021

Recording

• Philip Bane, SCC
• Matt Day, Triangle J Council of Governments
• Bonnie Dahany, Wake County
• Mike Mclanahan, Raleigh-Durham Airport Authority
• Amber Cobb, RiOT

Session 1-  October 13, 2021

Recording

• Philip Bane, SCC
• Janet Rives, Bridgestone Americas
• Rick Ralph and Billy Whitehead, Town of Morrisville

December 9 Readiness Workshop Participants

Town of Morrisville

Mayor TJ Cawley, Rick Ralph, Billy Whitehead, Danielle Kittredge, Danny Reilly  and Caleb Allred

TJCOG

Adam Spillman and Lindsey Whiteson

Wake County

Bonnie Dahany and Jakeema  Dawkins

Raleigh

Noah Otto and James Alberque,

Cary

Nicole Raimundo, Melissa Rineer, Patrice Walker and Terry Yates

Wilson

Linwood Tyndall

RDU

Michael McLanahan

Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro MPO

Casey (KC) Chae, PhD

Apex

Erika Sacco

NCDOT

Kelly Wells, Kerry Morrow, David Keilson, Tae-Gyu Kim, Ph.D., Keith Dixon and Brian Murphy, PE

Holly Springs

Jeff Wilson

Smart Cities Council

Philip Bane, Peter Murray and Connie Heath

SAS

Jennifer Robinson, Natalia Summerville, Jennifer Conner, Jim Trogdon, Natalia Summerville, Lee Ann Dietz, Jane Howell and Jerry Williams

Johnson Controls

Lisa Brown

DUKE Energy Sustainable Solutions

Michael Kilpatrick, Kasey Gridley and Jamie Cleveland

LVX

Mark Verheyen

Siradel

George Reed

Bentley

Ton de Vries

Honeywell

George Karayannis 

RIoT

Amber Cobb

IDC 

Curt Savoie

Bridgestone

Janet Rives

Azuga

Nate Bryer

Oracle

Arun Padmanadhan and Mark Zannoni

XQ Messaging

Brian Wane and Kelby Price

Three primary points of this Readiness Program update -

1. North Carolina's Research Triangle is accelerating its intelligent mobility programs.
2. A predicate to an intelligent mobility platform is the sharing of data.
3. Intelligent mobility will be accelerated by (i) recruiting 'all' stakeholders, (ii) accurately scoping solutions and (iii) capturing information in a sustainable manner

Your Participation: if you seek to participate in 2022 in our Readiness Program -

• As a city go here
• As a solution provider, go here

• What - Readiness Workshop on December 9, 2021 with North Carolina Research Triangle. See RECAP for a specific summary of topics, use cases and solutions reviewed.
• Where - SAS Institute HQ in Cary, NC
• Who (see specific list at RECAP link) There were participants from Wake County, Raleigh along with towns of Apex, Cary, Morrisville and Wilson NC, Triangle J Council of Governments, NC Dept of Transportation, Capital Metropolitan Planning Organization, Capital Area MPO (CAMPO,) Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro MPO (DCHC) AND Smart Cities Council Partners.
• Why - Accelerate Wake County’s development of an Integrated Mobility Platform with data sharing.

Our Goal of Accelerating Data Sharing for Wake County

On December 9 2021, the Smart Cities Council (‘Council’) convened a hybrid workshop at SAS Institute’s HQ in Cary NC to continue its work in assisting North Carolina’s Research Triangle accelerate the development of an Integrated Mobility Platform (‘IMP.’) Sponsored by Bridgestone Americas, SAS and RiOT, the workshop had over sixty (60) participants from local government and Council Partners.

While the goal is an Integrated Mobility Platform, the first step was to activate a data-sharing framework. Our goal in this workshop was to -

• Review all the information we had collected to date (See ReCap.)
• Identify existing needs
• Start identifying possible solutions.

"Integrated mobility platforms” allow cities to gather data from connected vehicle and infrastructure about prices, schedules, and real-time conditions.” McKinsey&Company – ‘Future of Mobility & How Cities Can Benefit’ (2017.)

Readiness Challenge Grant

Morrisville, NC applied to the Smart Cities Council for a grant to accelerate the reduction of traffic congestion in Wake County, NC. Morrisville applied in early 2021 and after a thorough review of its plans, was declared a Readiness Challenge Winner in the summer of 2021.  Morrisville had sought assistance as the number one complaint of its residents was ‘traffic congestion’ and data showed that Morrisville and other residents in the Raleigh metropolitan region drive more miles in their cars in any other metropolitan region in the US.

Accelerating a project involves several key steps -

• Recruitment of stakeholders - the hardest task in starting any project is to identify and recruit the key stakeholders. Failure to identify these stakeholders early in the process often leads to a series of ‘starts and stops’ as new parties and their respective goals are introduced to a project plan. So, a clear requirement in accelerating the reduction in traffic congestion in Wake County is to make sure we have the right parties at the table.
• Scoping of solutions - there is a clear priority here to reduce traffic congestion. The question is which solution will do this ‘and’ meet agreed goals (return on investment and meeting key metrics?) Often agreeing to one priority can lead to dropping or delaying others. Given that the region was actively building and maintain roads, there was agreement that a technology and data solution such as an Integrated Mobility Platform needed to stay ‘top of mind’ and this Readiness Challenge grant could do that.
• Capturing information - a clear problem before you begin a project is capturing all the relevant information about needs, parameters (such as time and budget,) stakeholders and solutions in a usable framework. Using stickies, spreadsheets and presentations has limited uses (to put it mildly) and that is where the Council’s Smart Cities Activator online platform provides an innovative approach. You can see more information about Activator here.

The Council worked with Morrisville in recruiting other jurisdictions in the region. Once this was done, the parties needed to share information and then start analyzing facts to determine the scope of any solutions.

See the RECAP for demographic and other information about Wake County and its five cities.

Wake County Needs an Integrated Mobility Platform

Wake County is very ambitious about developing an Integrated Mobility Platform ('IMP.') It needs to be - as residents in the Raleigh North Carolina metro area (which includes Raleigh and the towns of Morrisville, Apex and Wilson) along with the Raleigh Durham Airport) spend more time in their cars than in any other metropolitan region in the US. See: 2020 Street Light Data Climate Impact Report.

As a point of reference, traffic congestion can cost North Carolina over $5.9B a year (1% of state GDP of $592B.) See: McKinsey&Company – ‘Future of Mobility & How Cities Can Benefit’ (2017.) Factors that can increase traffic congestion include -

• Population growth
• Vehicle number growth
• Unsatisfactory public transit
• Construction
• Business to home delivery

Advantageously, Wake County (NC Research Triangle) is a relatively wealthy region in the US. Density (residential and commercial housing) is low, which along with a disconnected public transit systems - leads to a lot of time in the car. So, it is described as a high-income, low-density region. In its Future of Mobility report identified above, McKinsey&Company identified an Integrated Mobility Platform as ideal for any high-income, low-density region because it can reduce traffic congestion and incidents significantly.

Defining Key Terms - Mobility versus Transportation

• In the same report, McKinsey&Company defines an Integrated Mobility Platform as "...allowing cities to gather data from connected vehicles and infrastructure about prices, schedules, and real-time conditions. Cities could use the data to make smarter improvements and give riders the ability to plan and pay for trips, even using multiple providers."
• As a point of reference, the most commonly used term Intelligent Transportation System which the US Dept of Transportation describes as "ITS improves transportation by integrating advanced information and communications-based technologies (ICT) into transportation infrastructure and vehicles. ITS refers to a system of technologies and operational advancements that, when combined and managed, improve the capabilities of the overall transportation system.

As used by these two organizations, the terms are very similar - but at the Council the key term going into the future is 'mobility' which we think more fully addresses the needs and opportunities of city residents as opposed to 'transportation' which describes the mode of movement. You can find a good discussion of the differences here.

Current Planning Includes Capacity Improvement and Automated Traffic Signaling

As detailed in the RECAP, the region has already started many road-building projects; but data shows that roads become congested within seven (7) years of being first used. So along with the adverse impact of working on roads during the construction term, the benefit can be transitory.

The region, led by the two MPO(s) recently developed a Regional ITS Strategic Deployment Plan (as an update to the region’s original 2009 plan.) One outcome of that process was the creation of a Regional ITS Working Group.  The group recently held its initial kickoff meeting in October 2021, and plans to meet on a regular ongoing basis – representatives from TJCOG, MPOs, NCDOT, and local government.

The Regional ITS Strategic Deployment Plan has identified the predicate to an IMP, automated traffic signaling (‘ATS’) as a necessary first step. TJCOG’s plans identify developing a data-sharing framework within the region for automated traffic signaling, followed by the subsequent development of the automated traffic signaling.

When Morrisville applied to the Council for the Readiness Grant, we identified accelerating of a data sharing framework as a predicate first step to an ATS and eventually IMP. If the Council could assist Morrisville and Wake County in accelerating a data sharing framework, the developing of an automated traffic signaling capacity and Integrated Mobility Platform could also be accelerated.

Fortunately, the region had experience with data-sharing as in 2016 they had collaborated in sharing water-flow data for the purpose of predicting and mitigating damage caused by flooding. In fact, Cary had won an IDC award for this program.

RECAP - Go here to review the previous webinars the Council convened (video and presentations) for this program AND a summary of topics covered at the December 9 Readiness Workshop, along with a list of attendees.

We're putting together THE list of the most influential policymakers, practitioners and academics in data leadership across Australia and New Zealand. 

Join us in rewarding those who champion data leadership in the region.
Nominations for 2022 are NOW CLOSED! Winners will be announced in October at Smart Cities Week 🎉

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MEET THE JUDGES

Wayne Rumbles - Faculty of Law at the University of Waikato (New Zealand)
Wayne teaches and researches in the areas of Cyber Law, Law and New Technologies, Criminal Law (with a focus on Cyber Crime), and teaches in New Zealand's first Masters in Cyber-Security taught jointly by the Faculties of Law and Computer and Mathematical Science.

Nicole Stephensen - IIS Partners (Australia)
Nicole’s privacy career spans more than two decades, and she is widely recognised for her extensive local and international expertise in privacy program management and acculturation. Her frank, candid and practical approach to privacy has established her as a trusted advisor and thought leader in the industry. Nicole is an active mentor for privacy and cybersecurity professionals and is a sought-after thought-leader on the interface between privacy, cyber security, risk management, ethics and trust. She is a subject matter expert and Guest Lecturer for tertiary course curricula in Australia and abroad and is well known for her privacy discourse on smart cities and critical infrastructure, IoT/ IIoT, public interest technologies and digital policy affecting young people.

Tanya Lipus - Gold Coast City Council (Australia)
An experienced senior leader, Tanya leads the City of Gold Coast’s smart city team. Managing Australia’s largest City-owned LoRaWAN, overseeing the implementation of IoT projects and working with data to improve local economic outcomes.

Duncan Blair - Invercargill City Council (New Zealand)
Duncan has 20 years of IT experience, including 15 years of New Zealand Local Government IT experience, and 10 years in IT leadership positions. Recently he has focussed on programme-level strategies to enable Councils to be more responsive to emerging technology opportunities, while balancing affordability and the capacity for organisations and communities to adapt to digital transformation of Council services. He is an active contributor within the Digital Twin community. and advocates for environmental sustainability and conservation as well as awareness and inclusion of te reo Māori (the Māori language) and tikanga (customs/practices) within New Zealand society.

More about the Awards

What is Data Leadership?
We view data leadership through the lens of the five Data Leadership Vitals, and the ability to use data for impactful purposes - what we call 'data activation'.

Who should nominate?
Anyone working with data to enhance social, economic and environmental outcomes can nominate themselves or their peers. Nominations are open to all sectors - public, private, academia and NGO's. If you feel you or a peer has demonstrable evidence of advancing data leadership, consider nominating yourself, or them.

How many people can you nominate?
You are welcome to nominate as many people as you like. However please consider the criteria, and ensure their experience is relevant and they have had an impact in their work.

What is the cost to enter?
There is no cost to nominate either yourself or a peer. 

When do nominations close?
The Data Leadership Influencers50 winners will be announced at Smart Cities Week. Nominations for the 2022 list close on June 30th, 2022.

How are nominations assessed?
The independent Jury reviews each nomination submission to score its level of alignment with the following criteria:

• Advancement of the Data Leadership Vitals - purpose, privacy, security, ethics and governance
• Leadership in data activation - by supporting insights-driven decision making using emerging approaches such as data trusts, data exchanges and Digital Twins.
• Outcomes aligned – For what purpose is the nominee advancing data leadership?

How do you submit a nomination?
Head to our online portal facilitates both self-nominations and nomination of peers. 

In May, the Smart Cities Council reported that a new ISO standard gives cities a common performance yardstick.  Over the coming weeks we will explore this important new specification from the International Standards Organization (ISO) in depth, with a series by George Karayannis that examines each of the 17 themes and associated core and supporting indicators. 

What ISO 37120:2014 provides city leaders and citizens, for the first time, is a set of clearly defined city performance indicators and a standard approach for measuring each.  Though some indicators will be more helpful for cities than others, cities can now consistently apply these indicators and accurately benchmark their city services and quality of life against other cities.  This is an important step forward and we believe you will find great value in this exclusive series that industry veteran George Karayannis is providing. – Jesse Berst, Smart Cities Council Chairman

By George Karayannis, LEED AP

While the formal name of the newest smart city standard (ISO 37120:2014 Sustainable development of communities – indicators for city services and quality of life) is certainly a mouthful, ISO 37120 is important in that it is the first ISO standard for smart city indicators.  ISO 37120 is being developed as part of an integrated suite of standards for sustainable community development under the ISO’s Technical Committee 268.  

“ISO 37120 is a milestone in the development of smart city indicators and will help city leaders guide their smart city decisions and investments,” said Michael Jansen, CEO of Cityzenith, a California-based software company working with Chicago, San Francisco, Barcelona, Amsterdam and other cities globally to deploy its standards-based 5D data integration and visualization platform

In general, ISO 37120 defines 100 city performance indicators that could or should be measured, and how.  Specifically, ISO 37120 defines 46 core and 54 supporting indicators that cities either “shall” (core) or “should" (supporting) track and report.  Note that ISO 37120 conformance will require third party verification of data, and the organization is in the process of defining an audit process with pilot cities. ISO 37120 also provides for a set of profile indicators, such as population and GDP, to help cities determine which cities are most relevant for comparisons.

Standard evolution

City leaders worldwide look to benchmark their service performance, learn best practices from other cities and compare their city against other cities.  However, an initial effort by the Global City Indicators Facility in 2009 to compare city performance across nine pilot cities found that of 1,100 indicators, only two indicators were comparable because of differences in what cities were reporting and how.  Clearly, a common approach with consistent definitions and standard methodologies was needed to help cities measure and report their service performance and quality of life.  The ISO 37120 effort was launched in 2012 by city representatives from over 20 countries and evolved through five formal drafts and 300 comments.  According to World Council on City Data (WCCD) President and CEO Patricia McCarney, the WCCD is now piloting ISO 37120 conformance with 17 cities globally.

Related efforts

Smart city standards and related efforts continue to proliferate globally, and ISO 37120 will need to complement these efforts or face resistance. So far, ISO 37120 appears to be establishing a solid position in the market with a unique value proposition, and the organization is actively aligning with industry organizations. 

ISO 37120, unlike the STAR Community Rating System, is global in scope and is not a rating system and places no inherent value on indicator scores. Whereas C40 emphasizes city CO2 emissions measurement and reporting, ISO 37120 focuses more on factors related to energy and environmental sustainability and resiliency, including energy consumption of public buildings and average number of electrical service interruptions per year.  We’ll contrast ISO 37120 with related industry initiatives, including the Council's Smart Cities Readiness Guide, after we examine each of the 17 themes in ISO 37120 in more detail in the weeks ahead.

Stay tuned

With ISO 37120, city leaders and citizens can be assured that conformity will lead to consistent tracking and accurate reporting of key performance indicators.  What cities do with this information, and how they improve their indicators over time, will determine the lasting impact of this new smart city standard.

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George Karayannis has over 25 years of emerging technology and complex solutions sales, business development and marketing experience and is currently Director Utility Sales, Trimble Energy. He has held leadership positions at Schneider Electric, Lockheed Martin Energy Solutions, AT&T and wireless sensor startups.  He has also served as a city councilman and is restoring a 100-year old opera house to LEED Gold status. @gkarayannis

So far in our series: 

• • Economic indicators in the new smart city standard
  • Why education may be the most important smart city indicator of all
  • What the new smart city standard says about energy
  • Does your city's air quality measure up to the new smart city standard?
  • How debt, spending and tax collections add up in new smart city standard
  • Fire and emergency response indicators -- how safe is your city?
  • How voting, women and corruption figure in the smart city standard
  • How healthy is your city (and what zip codes have to do with it)
  • How fun is YOUR city? (And yes, it really does matter)
  • How safe is your city? (Hint: run the numbers on homicides and response times)
  • Gimme shelter, please! The homeless challenge cities face
  • The long road to zero waste cities
  • How connected (and innovative) is your city?
  • The long road to zero waste cities
  • How smart is your city about transportation?
  • Why shady planning is good for smart cities
  • How clean is your city's water?