Smart data use helps cities save resources and money
by Agence France-Presse.
SAN FRANCISCO—IBM is one of a number of companies aiming to help cities worldwide get “smarter” about using resources in ways that are good for the Earth as well as local budgets.
IBM late Sunday announced that the coastal Texas town of Corpus Christi has joined cities such
as London, Sydney, Stockholm, and Amsterdam in using internet-age tools to better manage water, trash, parks, and more.
“Look at the way the planet is evolving in terms of demographics and environmental considerations,” said Guruduth Banavar, chief technology officer of global public sector efforts at IBM. “It is pretty easy to see that we need to do some things dramatically differently.”
Urbanization and climbing population are putting stress on the environment, and problems are
exacerbated by inefficient uses of energy, water, and land.
New York state-based IBM and rivals such as Siemens in Germany and Cisco in California are providing systems that collect, share, analyze, and act on data from historically “dumb” things in communities. Technology can glean information about pipes, streets, parks, traffic, and other parts of cities to effectively target solutions and, in some cases, fix things before they break, according to Banavar.
“There is a lot of information available to us through technology that is not being put to
use very well,” he said.
Banavar used the example of Corpus Christi, which went from tracking city work crews and
projects on paper and index cards to getting real-time feedback and analytics electronically on roads, buildings, and more.
“Now, they
have information to say why problems occur, where they are, and what can be
done to prevent them,” Banavar said. “At the end of the day, it is
all about managing information to improve operations.”
IBM software is
being used in Corpus Christi to manage wastewater treatment plants, reservoirs,
approximately 1,250 miles of wastewater mains, and a water treatment plant that
can hold 170 million gallons. The system is relied on to provide water to the
city’s more than 280,000 residents.
Tracking of
water-pipe repairs revealed that nearly a third of the problems were at 1.4
percent of the sites served. Plans were put in place to fix underlying problems
and cut ongoing repair costs.
Data analysis
also showed that small pipes accounted for a disproportionate number of water
main breaks, prompting a switch to larger pipes to avoid future troubles.
“You can
improve efficiencies maybe two-fold,” Banavar said. “When problems
persist, you can dig deeper to find out underlying causes and apply predictive
maintenance.”
Corpus Christi
is going to use sensors in its trash collection program to improve recycling
and handling of waste.
“We want to
use information to make the planet a better place,” Banavar said. “We
can start solving these problems on the city level, then start connecting
cities and scale out across the whole planet.”
Cities can have
a more selfish motivation in that better using resources means doing more with
tight budgets.
“Corpus
Christi is evolving into a more sustainable city,” said city
administrative superintendent Steve Klepper.
“We have the real-time status of city services, automated work
orders, and an overview of city’s infrastructure to better manage our
resources, as well as better maintain the city’s mission-critical assets.”
Related Links:
Court gives green light to EPA carbon pollution standards
Failure to ban BPA leading to impotence in U.S. congressmen (probably)
Regional cap-and-trade advances
View full post on Grist – the latest from Grist