sustain

It’s great to see major technology companies like Microsoft, Google and IBM place an emphasis on finding solutions to mitigate climate change. These companies have some very talented engineering staff that could likely make a big difference. Recently, IBM has poured a lot of money into marketing their “smarter cities” program. The website, unfortunately, reads like a giant heap of cleantech-utopia used-car salesman babble. “Safe neighborhoods. Quality schools. Affordable housing. Traffic that flows. It’s all possible…” with IBM! Case in point, this lovely vacuous pitch about IBM’s vision for “Smarter Cities.”

However, the New York Times recently detailed an IBM Smarter Cities program that is, apparently, more than just hype: they are starting a project in Dubuque, Iowa that, “over the next several years will use sensors, software and Internet computing to give the city’s government and citizens the digital tools to measure, monitor and alter the way they use water, electricity and transportation.”

From the article:

I.B.M. already has a number of computer-services projects with cities around the world, from traffic management systems in Stockholm and London to a smart-grid electricity system in Amsterdam, to water management in Shenyang, China. A goal in each is to conserve resources and reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions.

The Dubuque effort stands out not only because it is in the United States, but also because it marks I.B.M.’s most comprehensive approach to these digitally enhanced public services — water, electricity and transportation. “We’re trying to make Dubuque into the first integrated, smart city,” said Robert Morris, vice president of services research at I.B.M.

The benefits, Mr. Morris added, could well extend beyond water, electricity and transportation. For example, housing development and traffic management could be modeled and policies adopted for other goals like “making sure you have a walkable city.”

The first phase will involve installing digital water and electricity meters in 250 homes and businesses. The smart water meters include special low-flow sensing technology from a local manufacturer, A.Y. McDonald, that will help the public works department and residences reduce water use and detect leaks. An estimated 30 percent of households use water unnecessarily because of undetected leakage in faucets and toilets.

The smart electric meters will help households track their energy use and conserve. They will be able to tap into a Web site and, for example, set household temperatures a few degrees cooler in the winter or warmer in the summer — and model the savings in energy use and monthly bills.

Sounds very technocentric but worth keeping an eye on. In particular, the water sensing stuff seems very relevant to our recent work with HydroSense–a water sensing system that can identify water usage down to the source (e.g., dishwasher, kitchen sink). We have also begun looking at leak detection and identification.

“Smart cities” have recently also emerged as a topic of academic inquiry–the key idea being that traffic sensors, cameras, and even mobile phones all potentially provide data that can be used to understand and model the city. We did a bit of this work on shared bicycling–i.e., what does shared bicycling data reveal about a city? Marcus Foth has a book called Handbook of Research on Urban Informatics: The Practice and Promise of the Real-Time City, which is a collection of essays on “smart cities” research. The senseable city lab directed by Carlo Ratti is also a great place to check out for work in this area.