A smart city integrates information to manage the city's assets and community services, including schools, libraries, transportation systems, hospitals, power plants, water supply networks, waste management, and law enforcement. Imagine a city where a man has a heart attack in the street and automated emergency services send a drone equipped with a defibrillator to arrive long before an ambulance can navigate through city traffic. Smart cities can save lives, and the only way cities can become truly smart is through data and analytics.
While defibrillator-carrying drones seem more science fiction than science, there are some areas where smart cities are already using analytics to yield tremendous benefits.
Advanced analytics applied to massive amounts of historical and geographical data can predict where crimes are likely to occur. Weather patterns, sports games, politics, school calendars, and dozens of other factors can all impact crime rates. While history is not always predictive of the future, many cities – including London, Los Angeles, and Chicago – have seen success directing police officers to appear in certain locations as a crime deterrent. Predictive analytics creates new patrol patterns to help these cities avoid potentially dangerous situations, decreasing incidents of crimes and reducing costs and societal impacts. Court fees are decreased, time spent processing crimes is reduced, and officers have more time to patrol to eliminate more crime.
Advanced analytics provides tremendous benefits to city planners. Buildings are often constructed without a true understanding of the impact on the entire region, but analytics and modeling can change that. Using predictive analytics and what-if scenarios, city planners can assess the impact of a new office park to determine the optimal location. How many more cars will be on the road? Can the existing infrastructure handle the increased traffic? Will the city need additional parking? Will the new office park help or hurt other businesses in the area? Planners can maximize accessibility and minimize the risk of overloading infrastructure by using analytics.
The London 2012 Olympics demonstrated how big data analytics can improve transportation efficiency. During the Olympics, London’s transportation network needed to handle 18 million journeys by spectators and athletes throughout London. The city used analytics to predict how many people would travel at what times on each day and ensure that transport was prepared to carry spectators and athletes to and from events. Using data to predict peak times and real-time monitoring of equipment performance to avoid breakdowns ensured smooth and reliable transportation to and from events.
Smart cities are a terrific example of data analytics taking planning to a whole new level. Lives are improved, resources are optimized, and a lot of money is saved. Using data and analytics to enable better outcomes is what Eka Analytics does. Aggregating and analyzing real-time and historical data feeds, Eka’s solution answers your most important questions.