Blog Post 3

Smart Cities & Pandemics

    Over the past few months we have seen the worst pandemic outbreak of a disease that we have witnessed in recent times. COVID-19 has drastically changed the way that many of us live our day to day lives including; school, work, recreational activities, and even health care. There has been an extreme focus on social distancing to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and ease the stress on our healthcare system, but a lot of people just aren't very content with just staying at home, not working, and not interacting with other people. Recently we have started to see protests over stay at home orders, with those protesting claiming that forcing American citizens to stay at home is non-constitutional and a violation of their rights.

    Another issue that has been brought up recently has been how a lot of our developed countries are actually lacking the medical infrastructure to deal with a pandemic. A lot of developed countries have been struggling to deal with the dramatic influx of patients that they have been receiving in their hospitals and the limited resources a lot of them had on hand to deal with a pandemic such as this. Hospitals have gone as far as stopping all non-urgent procedures and care to free up as many resources as possible for corona patients. This has produced a lot of issues for people who may need care and have been denied care and have suffered/died as a result. We've been hearing more and more stories of people being denied cared at various facilities and turning up dead in the next couple of weeks because they were denied from multiple emergencies rooms at the time they requested help.

As tensions hold, more countries are starting to test for fevers before allowing to travel or enter certain places.

   The way cities and work culture will likely change in the future is related to how they will be designed in a way to allow them to be more social distance by design whether it be restaurants, movies, other businesses, or public spaces. A lot of businesses have already proven that they are capable of running completely out of office remotely as businesses look to increase social distancing, this begs the question of do we actually need most people to drive into work? City transportation infrastructure is largely related to work commuting, but if people no longer have to commute as we've been proving that commuting to on campus work sites is kind of unnecessary, and if companies continue with social distancing practices we could actually see reduced commuter traffic in general.

    This change in consumer and work culture in general will greatly change the way that people commute, spend money, and even go out. It will change the way that restaurants and businesses are laid out to allow people to keep as much space as possible and potentially comply with future social distancing pandemic regulations, so that they can continue providing service more freely during future incidents. Work culture will also probably transition a bit more towards come in only as needed basis, with more people working remotely as much as possible. This will have significant impact especially on city transportation systems including roads, trains, buses, and other transit options if they are now just being used less. Among the positives we have seen NO2 levels around cities and major roadways have drastically dropped as our environmental impact has been reduced as people are just doing less overall. Below we can see the effect of quarantine orders on California.

How Smart Technology Could Help Us In The Future

    One way that a city may change is by implementing smart fever censors at store fronts and transportation hubs to sense when people walk in with high fevers. We could change protocol and make these people sanitize their hands and put on a face mask if they get detected at the entrance. This way we could detect and track potential infectious disease outbreaks before they happen and contain them better by preventing them from traveling long distances or entering places of high human density. This data could also be used to map and track disease outbreaks as well as stop as many cases from spreading as possible, protocol could vary based on current events and situation.

   Another smart city solution that may change is allowing an environmental tax breaks for corporations that allow more of their workers to work remotely. When paired with environmental sensors we could offer all opting corporations tax breaks directly linked to the environmental air quality improvement. We have already witnessed multiple nations experience improved environmental qualities over these past few months, and I think we could continue to further that if we continued on a path of less use. These air quality sensors could be used for more than just work from home environmental impact, but could also be used to monitor general air quality and the effects of potential environmental disasters. These sensors could go a long way with monitoring pollution and what a city's impact is on the environment.

    A third way we may see cities change are in the way that we handle pandemics isn't necessarily going to be a technological change, but I think we'll see a way that businesses and other public infrastructure is designed. Currently, a lot of our infrastructure doesn't really accommodate for proper social distancing if needed, and as a result a lot of businesses and public places have been closed to visits completely. I think a lot of businesses have and will continue to implement proper spacing/room to allow patrons to social distance and keep work areas more divided from patron areas to further protect workers from infectious diseases. I think even if these measures aren't up 24/7 a lot of businesses and local areas will probably have very clear and thought out procedure of how to respond in a timely manor in future pandemics.

WORKS CITED:

1. https://kinder.rice.edu/urbanedge/2020/03/26/what-our-cities-will-lookafter-coronavirus-pandemic

2. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/26/life-after-coronaviruspandemic-change-world 

3. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2020/03/coronavirus-cities-adapt-futureplan-economy-infrastructure/608908/

4. https://calmatters.org/commentary/with-coronavirus-we-should-practice-physical-distancing-not-social-distancing/ (image social distancing)

5. https://www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_large/public/headlines/italy_coronavirus.jpg?itok=edGdWIMA (image tempchecks)

6. https://images.foxtv.com/static.fox29.com/www.fox29.com/content/uploads/2020/04/932/524/no2-california-nasa.jpg?ve=1&tl=1 (image N02 decrease California)

Blog Post 2

Pre-Meeting Notes and Thoughts

I decided to attend the Bicycle and Pedestrian safety meeting as it seemed pretty relevant to my group project that we are working on for class. As it sounds the main goal of this meeting is to cover issues surrounding cyclist and pedestrian safety around town. Myself as a frequent user of alternative transportation and walking find this pretty relevant to myself as well as pedestrian and cyclist safety is pretty important to me. I want to do kind of a preliminary outline, with kind of what my conceived thoughts are on some potential topics and then have that to compare to what actually happens and is discussed at the meeting.

I'm hoping there is a diverse crowd of people in attendance at the meeting especially with a division of people are are non-pedestrian/non-cyclist and do the majority of their commuting via vehicle. I think it is very important that both sides of this issue are in attendance

The meeting will take place at City Hall in the Hooker Conference Room on 3/9 @ 5:30PM.


Current issues that I think face pedestrians:

• Use of non-motorized/motorized vehicles on pedestrian only areas.
• Lots of streets have long stretches of no-crosswalks leaving a lot of pedestrians with the choice to walk way out of their way or jaywalk.

Current issues that I think face cyclist:

• Cars and non-protected bike lanes. ie: bike lanes without a physical barrier between them and traffic.
• Road conditions, especially during the darker times of the day a large inconsistency in the road (grates, potholes, etc.) can really ruin someones day.
• A lack of street lighting during the darker times of the day for cyclist visibility, with many darker stretches of road around town.

I'm not quite sure what information or statistics will be presented during this meeting, but I'm pretty curious to see how/what information does get presented to the attendees. Will it be cyclist/pedestrian accident statistics, or will it be less informal anecdotal evidence? I'm pretty curious to see how they end up doing it. I'm also curious as to if any conflict will actually arise out of this, is it not universally accepted that we need better pedestrian and cyclist safety?

Meeting Notes and Thoughts

The crowd of people that ended up showing up was mostly our class. There were a few older people from the Bloomington area as well. Pretty involved group with local cycling clubs and other cycling related activities.

Current issues and topics that were brought up related to cyclist and pedestrians:

• Driver hit and killed cyclist in the past few months, no charges were pressed at the scene of the crime. You can be arrested, but you cannot be charged. Indiana does not have vehicular homicide laws. There is a reckless homicide charge which could be applicable to cyclist, but usually is overlooked.
• NYC is currently proposing a vehicular accident bill of rights, and it could potentially help with people effected by these types of accidents.
• Bloomington has about 4,000 crashes a year, not necessarily bike crashes, but this is a very high number to have police responded to each day.

Questions that were raised during the meeting:

• How are vehicle pedestrian, and vehicle cyclist cases handled compared to vehicle on vehicle collisions?

Some other topics that came up were:

• Signal timing and efficiency for pedestrians. Improving consistency between all lights in the city so that people always know how much time there is. Dangerous from the standpoint of now knowing when the vehicle lights will actually change. A lot of this seems to be coming down to UI and how information is being represented at traffic points.
• There have been a lot is issues recently with the accuracy and correct traffic patterns being shown at several patterns around Bloomington recently.
• Pedestrian signaling is not always automatic.
• Proposed no right on reds for many intersections around Bloomington, and we currently have no outlined no right on red policy here in the city.
• There are a lot of pending projects currently underway here in Bloomington.
• They went through and highlighted a lot of high danger traffic areas. Most of them are un-regulated intersections, but some are. A lot of the issue is on roads that have low visibility from the yielding streets, but others are roads with large amounts of traffic and unregulated pedestrian cross walks.
• New traffic patterns and improvement to rode geometry to reduce blind corners, and tight merges. This also includes bike lanes with physical barriers between cars and cyclist.

The information was presented as very anecdotal evidence person to person position mainly focused around deaths, injuries, and accidents related to certain intersections. With these very specific case examples of several different intersections around campus and several other places around town were identified. There seemed to be specific concern especially with a few common bike/pedestrian crossings that currently do not have any marked cross walks since they are technically residential areas, but see relatively high traffic.

The main issue seems to be how to fix traffic patterns, with limited data about the actual intersect. There seems to be a lack of data that is being collected overall. The current issue that they seem to be battling is an overall outdated system that is a lot of our traffic lights. The committee seems to firmly agree that the city is in general need of traffic light updates so that we can maintain consistency of pattern signally between all intersections around town. Additionally, it also seems that a lot of the money is going towards repairs and renovation. They are currently working on purchasing a cameras that will allow them to monitor intersections and it will be able to detect cars/people to collect more informative data that could help make specific traffic pattern changes that will have a better and more targeted effect to which they are trying to accomplish.

Towards the end of the meeting we got into talking about the community TDM updates, and the information that has come out relating to how the collection of transit data has been shown as well as some potential updates on transit options including but not limited to:

• Carpool
• Bike share
• Increased/improved bus routes

These are pretty interesting, because this information and services are done in part with the 4th Street parking garage, with the goal to not only solve the parking problem, but solve the transportation problem. Hopefully, with these other options they would be able to considerable reduce the number of spots needed overall.

Potential Smart City Solutions

• Data sensors to take information on # of cars that pass through a intersection, as well as # of pedestrians. They actually were talking about traffic camera investment so that they can get more detailed information about what is actually happening at intersections.
• Potentially mining information from people who use the bus app to get a better idea of where we should potentially set up bus stops or use it to determine some of the most common routes.
• More predictive traffic patterns to adapt to pedestrian and vehicle flow during different times of the day, however this is dependent on proper data collection so that this can be created.

Blog Post 1

Definition: What is a smart city?

A smart city is a city that implements technology in a way to better improve efficiency by collecting data to allow the city to make better informed decisions and use of resources. This can include several different things:

• Sensors to inform drivers on road conditions, live traffic patterns, and other information to allow them to more efficiently commute around town and reduce overall carbon emissions.
• Information related public transit to allow it to more efficiently move through a crowded city by changing traffic lights to improve travel time.
• Improved infrastructure and legislation to benefit alternative modes of transportation.
• Implementation of AI systems to better analyze all the incoming data and make the most optimized decisions.

These are some of the things that can lead to a city being smarter. The ultimate goal of a smart city is to make a city run more efficiently, reduce carob footprint per capita, and improve overall quality of life for everyone living there.

My Smart City Topic: Smart Streets and Smart Mode Choices

My topic is focused on the development of solutions for transportation in a city. Smart streets refers to the implementation of an IoT, or smart hub, to allow us to collect useful statistics related to road conditions and traffic patterns to allow a city to make more informed decisions related to the use of city resources, and inform drivers of these same things to allow them to make more efficient commutes.

Smart modes choices refers to the alternative modes of transportation other than traditional single person vehicles. This could include public transit, large bike paths, self-driving vehicles, and electric vehicles. All of these modes of transportation when combined with the correct infrastructure and the previously outlined smart hub IoT, could significantly improve a cities efficiency.

Smarter transportation can also be focused around the implementation of AI systems that are capable of interpreting the large amount of data that is coming in. This allows for some of the most efficient decisions made from these large sets of data. Further down we will be highlighting 3 different case studies and how we different cities have chosen to implement different smart technologies into cities.

Case Study Reflections:

Case 1:Hangzhou - City Brain AI

Hangzhou, is a city in China that has launched it's "City Brain" project, with the goal being to make it one of the most data responsive cities in the world. The way it works is though the implementation of AI to manage traffic signals at 128 intersections and over 1,000 roads simultaneously to more efficiently move traffic through the city, and expedite emergency vehicles and emergency vehicle response. This hub processes everything from road conditions, to isolated vehicle collisions. This City Brain has significantly reduced emergency and commuter response time by almost half. Not only does it monitor vehicular traffic, but it also monitors pedestrian traffic to allow for the best possible traffic patterns.

Hangzhou's City Brain (Image From:https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/15/tech/alibaba-city-brain-hangzhou/index.html)

By no surprise, this AI has been implemented by none other than the consumer e-commerce logistics giant, Alibaba, and for those who don't know what Alibaba is, it's very similar to Amazon and has a large market share of the Chinese market. Alibaba already deals with large amounts of logistic management as an e-commerce company, but now has taken it a step further with their implementation of the City Brain AI. This is an extreme example of implementation of an IoT hub to improve efficiency, but isn't that far of a cry from where a lot of major cities might be within the next 10-20 years. We are only at the very beginning of what a smart city can look like, and there is much more that a city will be able to do and collect data on in the future. It's projected by 2025, that we will be able to improve efficiency by another 15-20% in these cities that are already at the cutting edge of efficiency as a smart city. 

There are definitely a lot of benefits ranging from reduced commuter time, to improved emergency vehicle response time, and lower carbon emissions by reducing idling. However, with all these benefits there comes a lot of trade offs especially related to privacy. Other companies have already started to develop tools and applications to allow police bureaus to monitor, identify live faces, car license plates, and crowd movement. This can prove problematic for areas where individual freedom and expression may already be at risk, by automating a large part of the process that was formerly handled manually. I think that a smart city should implement these solutions only with the intent of improving everyone's quality of life, and not be used in an oppressive or big brother type of way as I believe that we enter into an area that could potentially oppress personal freedom. However, governments and other groups implementing these solutions hope that people understand the benefit of improved transit though monitoring/data collection and ultimately don't mind trading off a level of personal privacy for improved day to day life.

I think this case is a very good example of what individual companies, such as Amazon and other tech giants, could do for cities across the world. I think a large part of it comes down to what we as citizens of these cities are willing to sacrifice to achieve this improved efficiency. This also raises a lot of questions related to if we will need to create preemptive legislation to address these privacy issues that are right over the horizon, because it's often harder to pull back personal privacy than protect it from the start. Just look at Facebook, they started with very lenient data collection and analytics and it has taken months/years to reverse and step back to further improve it's users privacy and data protection. You don't know what you got till it't gone or infringed on, so airing on the side of protecting individual rights is always important when implementing new and potentially compromising technology.

Additionally, there have been other companies that have attempted to control vehicles and vehicle traffic, although not on the scale of Alibaba's City Brain. In 2016 IBM decided to launch Olli, a self driving electric-powered vehicle capable of carrying up to 12 people. This was a very small launch in 1 city, that eventually expanded to 3. This just furthers the thought that we can leverage these high level AIs to control our traffic patterns and even individual cars better than we can. This is pretty promising as AI technology is getting better and better as it get developed by private companies, and the future looks like it may come to private contracting to help establish city infrastructure based on individual needs. This does pose problems related to proprietary technology being implemented in different cities and multiple cities not being compatible with their individual proprietary technologies. We already see this today, with each city having their own proprietary public transit payment systems that aren't compatible with other cities. Standardizing transit and technology between several different cities would be a huge task, and would probably need national legislation so that cities are compatible.

Articles: 

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/15/tech/alibaba-city-brain-hangzhou/index.html

https://singularityhub.com/2019/03/08/the-smart-cities-of-the-future-are-already-taking-off/

Case 2:Barcelona - XALOC

XALOC is a smart city solution in Barcelona designed to reduce the time that it takes people to find parking spaces by 5-7 minutes. This is done by implementing sensors to detect which spaces are occupied and which spaces are open and directing cars to these spaces accordingly. This while not as impressive as the previously mentioned City Brain, is a great example of how a city can make quick improvements to it's city with minimal changes of infrastructure and a relatively low cost of implementation. You could implement this in any existing city without too much trouble and is a excellent solution to a very common problem. I think that one of the biggest issues with implementing IoT hubs in a city is being able to implement it into existing infrastructure without having to make too many changes which would significantly drive up cost.

XALOC Designers (Image From:https://www.uab.cat/web/latest-news/news-detail/new-system-helps-locate-car-park-spaces-1096476786473.html?noticiaid=1278568901108) 

These sensors that are used to detect open/occupied parking spaces have been cleverly designed to resist common issues such as:

• Vandalism
• Weather
• Cleaning

Making these sensors resilient to common issues is fundamental to their design, cost of maintenance, and cost of repair. This is important as maintenance and replacement will be some of the major driving costs of the system after it has been initially implemented. This is a pretty good thought to have especially if your sensors need to be accessible by someone without a ladder or other tools.

This solution not only reduces the time spent idling around a busy area trying to find a parking space, but it also guarantees that the existing parking infrastructure is used to it's fullest potential, by making sure that every available spot is actually being used, and instead of having people route to a full parking area or having parking lot vultures roaming a parking lot till a spot opens, it would redirect the traffic to new areas that have open spaces to park in. This not only saves time for the driver looking for a spot, it reduces carbon emissions, and overall traffic in an area by expediting the process of getting cars off the road.

Even though this is a relatively small topic that could be quickly summed up, I think it lays a lot of ground work of how simple a solution can be yet how much of an impact it may have on a city. Considering the environment that you will be placing your sensors in is important, cause they can only collect useful data for as long as they are I think a large issue facing cities with implementation of IoT hubs is the initial cost and the need to update existing infrastructure to implement these solutions. This kind of turns that all on its head, and shows that with creativity and planning you can create a elegant solution to a common problem with minimal costs.

Articles:

https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/projects/spain/a-sensory-solution-to-efficient-urban-parking

https://www.uab.cat/web/latest-news/news-detail/new-system-helps-locate-car-park-spaces-1096476786473.html?noticiaid=1278568901108

Case 3:NYC - LinkNYC

LinkNYC is a project aimed to bring fast high speed public internet to everyone in the city. The goals as outlined on the official LinkNYC website are as follows:

• Use your personal device to connect to LinkNYC’s super fast, free Wi-Fi
• Access city services, maps and directions from the tablet
• Make free phone calls to anywhere in the U.S. using the tablet or the tactile keypad and microphone. Plug in your personal headphones for more privacy.
• Use the dedicated red 911 button in the event of an emergency
• Charge your device in a power-only USB port
• Enjoy more room on the sidewalk with Link’s sleek, ADA-compliant design by Antenna
• View public service announcements and more relevant advertising on two 55” HD displays

A LinkNYC Kiosk (Image From:https://www.link.nyc/)

One of the glaring issues that I see is how fast technology has been developing over the past 10 years. From 2007-2017 we saw the average internet speed accessible to households become 5 times faster. Even today Gigabit Internet speeds 1gb/s are 300+ times faster than they were in 2007. As our data needs are constantly evolving even our gigabit speeds today may become obsolete in the next 10 years. However, I do think that creating public networks of access for internet is important in our increasingly technological world.

Currently, there are very few places where you can go to get internet without having to spend money, these places being libraries. Libraries are one of the few places left in the world and urban environments where people are allowed to exist and use all the libraries resources for little to no cost. I think LinkNYC is a good concept, but can only go so far if a city doesn't also establish areas to setup and sit down for extended periods of time. Overall I think there does need to be more generalized government subsidized spaces with internet access similar to libraries, but potentially more abundant.

Reliable communication technology is important for an IoT hub, just as a good foundation is important for any building. The US currently has some of the highest costs of internet per GB of data. Personally I think that internet needs to be treated as a public utility, not a paid private service. Having it as a public utility not only increases the quality for all people, but it also removes price gouging, speed throttling, etc. All practices currently used by the majority of major ISPs here in the US. One of the biggest issues facing a city with developing a smart hub will be data transmission and I think having to license/contract out city's internet to 3rd party companies poses an issue on its own, and makes these smart solutions only as reliable as the ISP, which we all know sucks if you have Comcast. In countries, like Korea, where internet is treated like a utility they have significantly reduced ping between devices on the Korean network as well as cost per GB of data.

It's kind of tangential, but my gripe with privately owned data infrastructure is more of a passion than anything else. I think there are entire groups that are marginalized here in the US because they cannot afford to or even have internet provider options at all. In this day and age groups that are marginalized from access to affordable internet are left at an inherent disadvantage from others who do have that access. Personally, I think that minimum internet access needs to be capable of maintaining a 720p30fps video stream or about 2.1-3 mbps/s with standard government regulated prices, no packages, no crap, just quality internet for a fair price.

Articles: 
https://www.link.nyc/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/616210/average-internet-connection-speed-in-the-us/

Citations:
Toh, M. (2019, January 15). Alibaba's 'City Brain' is slashing congestion in its hometown. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/15/tech/alibaba-city-brain-hangzhou/index.html

Diamandis, P. H., Diamandis, P. H., Diamandis, P., & Fortune Magazine. (2019, March 7). The Smart Cities of the Future Are Already Taking Off. Retrieved from https://singularityhub.com/2019/03/08/the-smart-cities-of-the-future-are-already-taking-off/

A sensory solution to efficient urban parking -Projects. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/projects/spain/a-sensory-solution-to-efficient-urban-parking

Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. (n.d.).  . Retrieved from https://www.uab.cat/web/latest-news/news-detail/new-system-helps-locate-car-park-spaces-1096476786473.html?noticiaid=1278568901108

Intersection. (n.d.). LinkNYC. Retrieved from https://www.link.nyc/

Holst, A. (2018, August 13). Average internet connection speed in the U.S. 2007-2017. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/616210/average-internet-connection-speed-in-the-us/